Bad news in the world of film is pretty common these days; we’re constantly hearing about film being discontinued or prices being jacked up. But, once in a while, there’s a glimmer of hope for those who still prefer the world of analogue to digital. And one such glimmer came recently in the form of toy camera company Lomography, which has decided to bring back 110 format film.
No 110 film has been made since 2009, but now Lomography have taken it upon themselves to breathe new life into the old format starting with the limited edition Orca B&W 100. And fortunately, for those of you who are giddy at the thought of breaking out your old pocket camera and snapping some shots, you won’t have to wait long. The cartridges, priced at $7.90 per roll of 24, start shipping in just two days on May 23rd, and are already available for pre-order at Lomography’s online store.
Faking toy camera effects with apps or software is a big fad these days, but Joel Pirela of Blue Ant Studio went a step further: he built his own homemade digital Lomography camera using some walnut wood, hand-polished aluminum frame, parts from a 5-megapixel Vivitar Vivicam, and an Olympus OM series lens. Read more…
Lomography has launched the LomoKino, the world’s first consumer 35mm movie camera. It’s an old-school hand-cranked camera that uses standard rolls of 35mm film (yeah, the kind you use in film cameras). The camera captures 144 individual frames onto each roll of film, producing a video that lasts 50-60 seconds. Once you have your film developed, you can watch it using a separate LomoKinoScope: a hand-cranked movie viewer! Read more…
These Diana cameras were decorated and auctioned for Lomography’s Diana World Tour this year. If you regularly photograph young children, giving your camera a colorful costume can help make it a lot less intimidating (Camera Creatures work well too).
Photo-enthusiast etxenike recently won a spool of Verichrome Pan 116 film in an auction, and discovered that it had already been exposed. He had the film developed, and found that five of the eight photographs survived — not bad for film that has been sitting around since the 50s or 60s! Read more…
Lomo shooter wn7ant came up with a neat way of turning instant film photos into one-of-a-kind business cards. After printing out his business card design onto a transparency, he cuts it out and sticks it onto an Instax film cartridge. To create a new card, he simply takes a picture — the contact information on the transparency is printed onto every photograph!
mr-korn over at Lomography recently snagged a cheap Olympus Zuiko 50mm lens on eBay, but the lens didn’t come with a lens cap. Rather than try and find a replacement cap for that particular lens, he decided to craft his own DIY cap using a can of Coke. Read more…
If you’re into experimental film photography at all, Lomography is currently offering a $50 voucher towards its website or NYC store for $20 through Groupon (available to people in the US only, sorry!). There’s free shipping on orders over $25, so you could get 18 rolls of Lomography color negative film with some change to spare!
File this under “awesome ways to show off your photos”. Lomographer zakguy had a year’s worth of Instax Mini instant photos on his hands and no way to display them, so he created a custom coffee table using his favorite shots!
I arranged my favorite shots into a pattern based on overall photo color. It isn’t perfect, but it makes for a really fun real life Lomowall, but on a coffee table. From there we carefully taped down the photos squarely to the table with double sided tape to hold them all in place. Once they were all in place, I went to a local hardware store (Lowe’s) and had them cut a piece of thick plexiglass to cover the table top exactly. I attached some adhesive rubber bumpers to each of the 4 corners and placed it on top of the photos, and that was it. [#]
It’s a neat DIY project that you can do yourself if you have a suitable coffee table and a collection of prints you want to display.
There’s plenty of tutorials out there teaching you how to fake the “Lomo effect” using Photoshop, but most of them don’t provide very realistic results. This “ultimate” tutorial by SLR Lounge attempts to mimic all the distinct characteristics of lomo photos (e.g. cross-processed colors, vignetting, blown highlights, and blurred edges) giving you a level of control over the results that an iPhone app could never do.
