Then phone cameras became the dominant life-recorder, capturing every day of our lives without embellishment. And then, as if we all went mad for nostalgia at once just few years into the raw truism of digital, Instagram arrived. Now we could shortcut the whole process of Lightroom, Aperture, or whatever existed at the time, and, with the push of a button, transform perfect and well exposed digital photographs with incredible detail for a phone camera with a sensor smaller than a pin head into something shot with a bucket and toaster and people loved it.
We were back to loving the film look, whatever that is. Somewhere in the middle of all that, Lomography was born. You kind of have to guess. Truthfully, LOMO cameras existed before this. The original Diana was born in Hong Kong in the early s. Throughout this decade and into the s, Great Wall Plastic Co. By the s, the Diana ceased production. It came with the original box and the hard cover book that was packaged with it, and I figured at the very least the book was worth ten dollars.
The person I bought it from said she ran exactly one roll of film through it. There is a sense of disbelief that the little toggle to the right of the lens does anything at all, though it is in fact the shutter release. You will fight the flimsy film advancement wheel and you will think you hear the film being torn apart inside the camera as you advance it. You will have no faith in the framing of your subject through a joke of a viewfinder, and you will trigger the shutter, and move on.
Maybe you got a picture. I kind of wanted to hate this camera. I wanted to be embarrassed by the bright blue plastic body of the Diana. I wanted to loathe the pseudo artsy images it produced and to be angry at the vignetting you get from the Diana F-ing plastic lens.
I wanted to rail against its crap build quality. I wanted to finally declare it was a piece of junk. Any self-respecting photographer will get sick of the novelty of this camera in about a month, or six rolls of film — whichever comes first.
At least, I did. The film I picked up from the lab was as pleasing as ever with quirky, badly exposed squares of film with strangely out of focus bits, and a general loveliness of an undefinable quality. The last two images were a bit more out of focus than the rest, but not offensively so. I went for a walk with the Diana and then, as photographers are wont to do, I found a thing that I wanted to take a picture of. This was when I discovered the lens, well, it was simply gone.
Gone missing. Nothing left where the little piece of plastic had once been except a gaping hole. Realizing I was religious about keeping the lens cap on when not in use I knew it had to be nearby. And I had worn it out. The fact that the camera is essentially garbage after seven or eight rolls of film is not important.
But still, no regrets. One last note for the record — I own a Stiletto titanium hammer. I take my hammers seriously. By purchasing anything using these links, Casual Photophile may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you. This helps Casual Photophile produce the content we produce. Many thanks for your support.
Craig Sinclair was born in Ontario and is a University of Toronto School of Architecture graduate living in Vancouver for the second time. His photography explores the underlying narratives existing in found contexts. Panoramic shots are also possible with a mask.
The plastic camera from Lomography also has a tripod thread. It is not connected to the lens, so it can only give a small preview of the later image. Also included is a book with photos and the history of the Diana. With the adapters for the flash, it can be used with a normal camera with Hot Shoe. This film is still in production and is relatively easy to get. One film pack contains ten pictures.
Photographs are taken normally, just as when using the normal back. To get the instant picture, a button on the back must be pressed, then it ejects the picture. After a few minutes, you then hold the finished picture in your hand.
Of course, the Instant Back can be used with the Diana accessories, such as the lenses, flash and splitter, and double and multiple exposures are also possible without any problems. In addition to the back, the scope of delivery also includes a compensating lens for correct focusing. This accessory is also equipped with a tripod thread and a film counter.
It was developed by Lomography Japan. There are four formats to choose from: square with exposed sprockets, panorama with sprockets, normal panorama without sprockets, and standard landscape. Two film counters indicate the number of frames. In addition to the back, the package also includes instructions and four plastic frames for the different formats. Why use 35mm film in a medium format camera? Besides more images per film and the exposure of the sprockets, probably the main reason is the cheaper prices and the greater availability of 35mm film.
Because of the smaller medium, 35mm film is smaller than roll film, the size of the image is also reduced. So it can happen that for example heads are cut off, because the viewfinder is not designed for this format. Effects such as vignetting or the fisheye effect of the Diana lenses are also not as effective when the back is used. For the use of a cable release this accessory is necessary, since the Diana has no thread for one.
There is also a solution for this, and that is the Cable Release Collar. This is a plastic attachment that attaches to the front of the camera. Now a normal cable release can be attached to the camera. There is one already included, but other releases can be used as well. This makes blur-free long exposures and self-portraits easy. A poster is also included in the package. Like the Diana, the flash is modeled after the old Diana from the 60s and fits perfectly with the plastic camera.
In the scope of supply there are also a lot of color filters, with these the color of the flash can be changed, in which they are put in front of the flash. They used roll film that produced 16 4cmx 4cm square photos. Although extremely low quality, they reached a wide audience, including photography instructors and art schools, as prizes in promotional giveaways, first cameras for children, and art photographers who liked the special effects from the numerous defects, light leaks, and blurriness resulting from the cheap plastic lens.
So today, where retro is trendy, and Instagram users are adding filters to their digital photos to replicate the analog looks of photography past, it makes sense that a kickstarter was initiated and a film photography society such as Lomography has brought the Diana back to life. The Diana comes in stylish packaging. Included along with the camera is a detailed instruction manual in 8 languages and a page mini sized book filled with Diana photographs and history designed to enhance the "experience" of owning a Diana remake.
The user manual itself is helpful and filled with accurate instructional information. It is also dripping with romantic adoration of this nostalgic "toy.
Jump to photo results. The Diana remake offers a few more bells and whistles than its 60 year old predecessor, but over all this is a VERY simple camera.
There are three focus settings selected on the front of the lens. There are two shutter speed settings selected on the top of the lens, N for instant and B for bulb. There are four aperture settings selected on the underside of the lens illustrated as weather icons to represent light conditions. These include cloudy, partly cloudy, sunny, and P for pinhole. The camera comes with 2 frame masks that can be inserted into the camera to change the image size on the film.
With no frame mask you will get 12 5. The smaller of the two plastic frame masks will give you 16 4. The back of the camera incorporates a viewing window and a format selection switch. The viewing window is covered with a clear red filter to protect the film from light. The piece of plastic with the arrow can be slid to either 16 or 12 shots which allows you to see the number on the back of the film paper which corresponds to the frame size and number of shots you will get per roll depending on the frame mask you installed.
The 16 being the smaller 4x4 size and 12 for the larger 5x5cm shots. In the original Diana style cameras, this window was a huge source of light leaks, however in my initial tests it presented no issues.
The Diana uses a standard film advance crank on the top of the camera. It rolls the film on to the take up spool and will only rotate in one direction. There is no protection against double exposures so you have to remember to advance the film and watch through the viewing window. On the other hand, if you wish to make a double exposure, it is easy to do with this camera.
Also the pieces of plastic that hold the spools in place are very flimsy, which can cause the film to jam. The shutter release is a simple sliding knob on the right hand side of the lens.
It uses a two part mechanism in the camera, as you press the lever down one window opens to reveal the aperture hole and another window slides quickly over the open hole to expose the film. A simple mechanical setup means less opportunity for functional failure. The Diana also comes with a little plastic piece attached by a cord to assist in using bulb mode for long exposure shots. With the shutter set to bulb mode, you can very carefully place the tiny piece of plastic into the shutter release slot to hold the shutter open.
This works much better if the camera is on a tripod vs simply set on a flat surface. The Diana has a standard threaded tripod mount on the bottom. Piece of plastic for holding shutter open. Plastic wedged into shutter slot, holding shutter open. The Diana's viewfinder is nothing more than a plastic window above the lens. The Lomography user manual romanticizes this crap by saying; "As you can imagine, the viewfinder is not super-precise These composition errors occur because, instead of looking through the lens as you would in a DSLR, the viewfinder is about an inch and a half above the line of sight of the lens.
This parallax effect gets worse the closer you are to your subject. This is about the same distance between the taking and viewing lens of a TLR, yet for whatever reason the parallax error seems much worse in the Diana than in any of my TLR cameras.
For what Lomography calls "true pin hole mode" you can remove the plastic lens from the camera. The top of the camera incorporates two holes for plugging in the specially designed flash or a hot shoe adapter. These holes provide an electrical circuit connection.
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