Halina's 1990s 35mm compact — fixed focus, auto exposure, switchable flash, CR123A power, Haking-made
The Halina Silhouette is a compact 35mm point-and-shoot made by W. Haking Enterprises of Hong Kong, sold in the UK in the 1990s. It headed a small family of Silhouette-branded compacts that also included the Silhouette Sensor, Silhouette Zoom and Silhouette 28 DF, all cheap high-street cameras aimed at casual snapshooters.
The base Silhouette is a fixed-focus compact with automatic exposure and a built-in flash that, unusually for the class, can be switched off. Retailer listings state it runs on a single CR123A lithium battery, in line with other cameras in the Silhouette family. It takes standard 35mm film; beyond this, published specifications for the base model are sparse, and Haking documented little about its own products.
It behaves like every good cheap 1990s compact: aim, press, wind on to the next frame. The switchable flash gives slightly more control than the average focus-free camera, making it usable for daylight street and holiday shooting on 200-400 ISO film. Buyers wanting sharper optics or focus control should look to autofocus compacts of the same era instead.
Because sellers use 'Silhouette' loosely across the whole family, check photos to confirm the exact variant (the Zoom and Sensor versions are different cameras). Test with a fresh CR123A: confirm the flash charges and the shutter fires, since the camera is battery-dependent. CR123A cells remain easy to buy but cost more than AAs, worth factoring into a low purchase price.