As a late Christmas present I received this. A Lomo Lubitel 166B (Yes. I have a ‘thing’ for lomo cameras). A medium format from the 1980′s. Build originally as something cheap and mostly as a ‘toy’ camera, and thats what gives it its distinct character. As opposed to the Lubitel 166+ this one isnt made by the money grabbing lomography corporation. Yesterday I was trying to use my ‘piggy points’ online (basically money off points 1+£1), trying to buy some film, £10, however postage for 3 rolls is £12 — more than the film itself. even with £5 off its expensive, and on top of that they have a winter 10% off offer on too. Still came to £15. £2.50 more than in the shops. So what is the point? They still are making a killing on cameras and film. Even with the downfall of polaroid cameras there are applications you can buy like poladroid (some samples on my friends blog here) even applications for the iPhone like Hipstamatic are now very popular as cheap digital alternatives for these rare cameras.
The results are pretty good in comparison to the real thing, however I still prefer a real polaroid camera any day over the digital alternatives.
Back to the point. This is one of the reasons I bought a Lubitel 166B, to get back into the real experimental side of using film cameras. None of the ‘fake’ processing that can be applied to any image. Anything can happen to the film, overexposure, user error, mistaken blur or strange angles. That is what I love about using film.
The Diana+ another one of my lomography cameras (as used to take the above photo) is a 120 medium format camera, however lomography has released a 35mm adapter for the camera, which I have also bought for myself, meaning even more experimental fun to be had. I know I have totally contradicted myself by spending nearly £40 on a plastic adapter, but trust me it is worthwhile. I can see why people can spend so much money on these cameras for un-expected results. Paying more for something that is worse than others. However its those un-expected moments we ‘lomographers’ crave and that is why we do it.
…and yes, I know I have too many cameras, you keep telling me. Its an addiction.
They call it ‘lomo-fever’.
