Black & White Photography - September 2015 UK

74

B+W

CHECKOUT

Film cameras offer a refreshing change to the digital mainstream, and

what could be more fun and creative than a toy camera? Daniel Calder

looks at the line-up in a bid to escape the digital shackles.

TESTS AND

PRODUCTS

LIKES DISLIKES LIKES DISLIKES

Easy to load, relatively cheap

and accessible film

Lens attachments add creativity

Good degree of manual control

Captures panoramic images

on 35mm film

Good quality 28mm glass lens

Large panoramic viewfinder

No black & white film available

Approximate viewfinder

Small 42x64mm images

Few manual controls

Tricky to load film

Expensive

T

he Lomo’Instant is the

first instant camera from

Lomography. It uses

Fujifilm Instax Mini, which

is pretty cheap, easy to load and

readily available but the resulting

images are no bigger than a

credit card. Without wanting to

belittle its creative potential, the

Lomo’Instant is mostly going

to be used to record good

times with friends and, with

the tiny mirror on the camera’s

front, plenty of selfies. The

camera itself is a large plastic

brick available in a few colours,

and features a built-in 27mm

equivalent wideangle lens. One of

the more creative aspects to the

camera is the ability to add other

lens attachments. The package

includes a 170º fisheye lens,

35mm equivalent portrait lens

and a close-up lens which allows

you to get as close as 10-15cm

to your subject or self. Manual

controls are good too: you can

switch the flash from auto to

On or Off, set the aperture from

f/8 to f/32 and shutter speed

from 1/125sec to Bulb for long

exposures. There’s also exposure

compensation and an MX switch

for multiple exposures.

LOMO’INSTANT + 3 LENSES HORIZON KOMPAKT

TECH SPECS TECH SPECS

Film Fujifilm Instax Mini

Focusing distance 0.1m-infinity

Flash Built-in

Viewfinder Optical

Tripod mount No

Battery 4 x AAA

RRP £119

Contact microsites.lomography.com/lomo-instant-camera

Film 35mm

Focusing distance 2m-infinity

Flash None

Viewfinder Optical

Tripod mount No

Battery None

RRP £199

Contact shop.lomography.com/gb/horizon-kompakt

SWAP LENSES 35MM PANORAMAS

T

he bizarre appearance of

the Russian-made Horizon

Kompakt is essential to

the camera’s operation.

The large ‘bay window’ on the

front conceals a 28mm glass

lens that sweeps 120º from one

side to the other, capturing a

panoramic image on 35mm film.

It manages to do this by curving

the film plane to match the lens

and exposing the image across

approximately two frames.

Thanks to the glass optics the

results are passably sharp, yet

images retain the quirky glowing

colours that most photographer’s

want from a Lomo camera.

The device works without any

batteries, using a clockwork

motor to move the lens and a

lever to advance the film. A large

optical viewfinder gives a good

idea of the image about to be

taken. The lens is fixed at f/8,

while the shutter speed can flick

between day mode at 1/60sec

to night mode at ½sec (although

both are considerably slower due

to the lens sweep). For greater

control take a look at the more

expensive Perfekt model, which

offers variable apertures and

shutter speeds.

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