If you were asked to buy a camera with that name, would you do it?
What's a GOKO? There's a lot of interesting stuff in this story.
GOKO Group (Japan) specialized in 8mm film editors, and they were pretty successful. Then, during the hype of the 80's for compact autofocus, GOKO decided to enter this market. The most successful and innovative model of the brand was GOKO UF-2 ("Universal Focus"). Deciphering "Universal Focus" is the name of the development, which the famous Japanese brands wanted to buy. The website gokocamera.com describes that a group of developers of a famous Japanese brand gave a request for an OEM (permission to sell other people's goods, under their brand). After that, the brand's reputation skyrockets and they get an OEM request from most Japanese brands. I'm not implying anything, but the GOKO UF-2 clone is the Pentax pino 35M. I wonder if most Pentax or Olympus or Canon compacts are GOKO?
Let's move on to the camera itself. The body is typical for the mid-80s, a small brick, with strong plastic, and rough edges. The flash is forced, on the front of the body. Don't forget to turn it off, big charge consumption! Fully mechanical camera, no displays, etc. Minimum of buttons, actually there is only one - shutter! And two sliders, film rewind and ISO setting. The ISO adjusting is rare feature in budget cameras, and that's a big plus (the range is from ISO 100 to 1000). GOKO Lens (glass), focal length fx 35mm with aperture ratio 1:3.8. For a point-and-shoot lens it is very good. The minimal focal length I found in the Pentax pino 35m manual is 1.2m. I was shooting the object too close and the camera was shooting to infinity. For me it is a minus when the minimum focal length is more than 0.8m. Camera use 2 AA batteries and of course, this is a plus. The viewfinder has comfortable size, larger than the minilux. The biggest minus of these cameras is age. But it's not their fault, because initially it's a plus to last so many years. This can affect the battery pack and flash first of all, but it's all individual.
I shot in December (important) with Ilford FP4 iso 125 film, so the flash was almost always on. I liked the softened detail, meaning the main subject wasn't cut by the outline, plus the skin with no white highlights (smooth tone). I think in the summer sun it would be a good option to shoot street.
On my evaluation scale GOKO UF-2 will take the "Low +" level. For its lens and ISO settings. We know and see the GOKO brand for a long time, but below other popular Japanese brands.
