HAWKEYE INSTAMATIC R4 Camera

The Hawkeye Instamatic R4 was a simple point-and-shoot camera Kodak built between 1965 and 1971, combining the firm's long-established Hawkeye name—used on Kodak cameras since the 1900s, for example on the popular Brownie Hawkeye of the 1950s—with the cartridge-loading Instamatic system Kodak introduced in 1963. Together with the other cameras in the Instamatic range, it used 126-format film cartridges which were simply dropped into the back of the camera, thus eliminating the need to thread the film by hand. It was equipped with a basic fixed-focus lens that had neither a user-adjustable focus nor an aperture setting, and had a two-speed shutter, the speed being generally given as about 1/40 of a second when a flashcube was fitted in the flash socket and about 1/90 of a second in daylight when no flashcube was used. The R4 occupied a middle position in Kodak's range of Hawkeye Instamatic models, coming after the first Hawkeye Instamatic (1963–1967) and before the later Hawkeye Instamatic X (1971–1978). It is still a common and inexpensive camera to find on the used camera market nowadays, often appearing with its original box, wrist strap and instructions, although as a fixed 126-format camera it is now mainly valued as a display item or by collectors since production of 126 film has long since ceased.