This camera was used by Mike Banks, the renowned explorer on his two best known expeditions to Greenland (1952-1954) and the Himalayas (1956, 1958) which formed the subject of his two books. In his diary Banks wrote: 'I received a lovely new toy in the form of the Reid camera. It is a delight to handle and I am proud that it is British'. His book records 'I indulged in sporadic chatter, interspersed with a little exercising of my Reid camera...'

On his first attempt on the then unclimbed Himalyan peak Rakaposhi (25, 550ft; 7788m.) in 1956 Banks and his Reid camera failed to make the summit and were swept three hundred feet in an avalanche. Both escaped unscathed. The second attempt in 1958 was more successful and Banks, with the celebrated Scottish mountaineer Tom Patey, reached the summit without oxygen, in a blizzard and both suffering from frostbite and exhaustion. Banks recorded the use of the Reid at the summit: 'I opened my camera, a Reid, and tried to take some pictures. The cold was intense and the shutter, instead of moving with a brisk "glop" made a hiccupping "ger-lop" noise, just as it had in Greenland on the colder winter days...I took some photographs working the camera with my leather gauntlets on'.

Banks was awarded the Polar Medal and received the MBE for expedition leadership.