Smile, you're on camera. Lots and lots of camera.

Ask 'what’s a famous 35mm rangefinder camera', and most people (at least in Europe) who’ve ever had an interest in pre-digital photography will probably say 'a Leica.'

Put the same question to the same sort of people in the USA, and that reply will more likely be 'an Argus C3,' or maybe even 'a Brick' - an obvious nickname for an obvious reason.

To my mild embarrassment, I’d never seen or even heard of these until a couple of weeks ago, despite it being (according to Wikipedia) the highest-selling 35mm rangefinder of all time. It's even appeared in a couple of recent movies, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (where I have to admit I didn't notice it) and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (where it was carried by Gwyneth "Polly Perkins" Paltrow and produced a "what on earth is that?" response from me.)

(Diane made me feel a bit better less ignorant when she said she hadn't heard of them either. Hers was a Kodak family…)

It does have the most marvellous retro look (yes, that word again, it’s been a bit of a retro weekend, what with one thing and another), in fact so laden with "chunky and exciting details" that I thought it had been specially built by the props department to match the alternate-late-1930s period look of Sky Captain. The various greeblies also give it a bit of viewer recognition, since Polly's near-umbilical attachment to her camera (and reluctance to use an ever-decreasing number of shots despite an ever-increasing number of amazing things to use them on) is a sort of running joke throughout the film.

For me at least, the running joke is the way a soi-disant "photojournalist" manages to hang onto this big block of a camera (which is quite correct, every photojourno I've ever met would sooner lose a finger than their alternate eye) without apparently having thought to hang onto a few spare rolls of film as well. If push came to shove, or snip, the aforementioned PJs would sacrifice their least favourite ear for a few spare cans of Kodachrome, just so long as they wouldn't miss THE SHOT.

(How much money could you demand for a pic of a certain Merc hitting a certain underpass support in a certain French city...? The "amount" space on the cheque is invitingly blank, and you have the pen.)

I need to have another look at the movie, in case the camera is shifted into Hammerspace when things get awkward. The dead giveaway for this is if there's absolutely no indication of it being carried, but suddenly she's snapping a picture or more usually, agonising over not snapping a picture in case something even more awesome is just round the corner. (It always is.) Otherwise it seems to be the usual Hollywood convention of convenience: "Things that constantly need reloaded in real life don't need reloaded at all in the movies, unless for comedic or dramatic reasons, and in both cases that's usually when no reloads are available."

I wonder how many other things I've dismissed as prop-department constructs have been real. Just don't get me going on the flip-side of the punch-card, at least where expensive Big Name Stars are concerned. That's too much like shooting fish in a barrel.

(Bring me a Tommy-gun, a bucket and 10 kippers; the queue forms to the left.)