Argus C3 - the Harry Potter camera

This is the Argus C3, one of the boxiest non-box cameras out there. It was featured in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. It’s a 35mm coupled rangefinder, meaning you can actually focus by looking through it.

It lacks auto focus, but there is a merit to doing things the manual way.

It also lacks a light meter, but hey, you can run and gun with no worries about battery life.

It does take pictures, in fact, it works perfectly. It functions as intended, along with its additional uses:

It makes for an exceptional paperweight, adding an element of class to any desk. It also functions as a door stopper, but you really need to shove it in there. You can use it as a stopper for your trailer, a fishing weight, construction material, construction tool, blunt murder instrument, window breaker, or even a really really short footstool. Wouldn’t make a great footstool, but it is a better footstool than it is a camera.

If you’re drifting un-tethered in space and want to apply your knowledge of Newtonian Physics to to apply a force to yourself in the opposite direction to prevent you from drifting off into oblivion, you can throw this camera. Throw it hard, it doesn’t have a lot of mass and you really don’t have anything else worthless enough to throw in space. Everything else has a purpose, this camera does not.

It can also be used to gauge the depth of a hole. Just drop it in and listen for the sound of it hitting the bottom.

Makes good catapult ammo too!  Or a catapult target.  It might also fit in a slingshot, I haven’t tried. Really, the possibilities are endless!!