I was quite excited to recently receive my order of the 120 LomoChrome Purple film that I had pre-ordered late last year when Lomography announced they were re-doing the film.
I knew the film had previously worked well in Hove Cemetery when I had used the 35mm version so that’s where I wanted to try out this film. I decided to try it when it was a bright sunny day and I used my Lens Shade to hopefully avoid sun glare.
I wanted quite a vivid purple so shot the film at 400 ISO and here are some of the results:
I also tried out my prism filter to add to the fun of this film:
I already knew from previously trying out this film that the reds remain red and I found a couple of areas in the cemetery which had red flowers/berries:
The above two photos were taken towards the end of the roll of film and I noticed some areas of sun glare even though I had the lens shade on.
In the end I figured there may have been a slight fault with the actual film as the last photo below showed the backing paper marks on the film:
I bought these films as a batch of five so I’m really hoping the others don’t have similar problems like this.
I know next time I need to try this film out on a different subject matter since in the past year, I’ve taken so many purple shots on different camera’s at this cemetery.
I was also not as impressed as I thought I would be at using the Hasselblad with this film. I thought the photos were going to be extremely crisp and detailed.
I won’t deny that there is some slight crisp detail from using this camera but not as crisp as I get in my black and white films and I can only put this down to the fact it’s varied shades of purple perhaps softens the photos.
These photos were taken handheld so I do think it would be interesting to try this film out next using a tripod and seeing if that makes much difference.
This camera was a bit of an impulse buy because Lomography had slashed 50% off the normal retail price on a random Monday several weeks back so it cost me £24.50 rather than the usual £49.00.
Although my Diana F+ camera has a pinhole shooting option, I was drawn to this camera because of the different colour filters it comes with so thought it would be a fun camera to try out.
Also, I had never tried out pinhole photography before so thought this would be a good starting point.
I really like the yellow colour of the camera and it is plastic and lightweight like the Diana F+. It also takes 120mm film as it’s designed to be shot in medium format. However, there are two frames provided with the camera to take 16 small square shots (4.2×4.2cm) and endless panorama (4.6×4.6cm) both on a 16 shot setting instead of the normal 12 shots if you didn’t use the frames.
The camera is fully manual so there is no lens or shutter. You can select how many pinholes you want by moving the switch under the front barrel. You can choose between one, two or three pinholes.
To take a photo, you need to open the pinholes and close them when enough light has gone onto the negative using the switch on the left of the barrel. You push the switch down to let light in and up to stop the light from coming in.
Lomography recommend that you use a tripod if you want to avoid blurry images. There is also an option to attach a flash (although this wasn’t included with the camera).
I was very excited about testing out this camera and have a flimsy travel tripod which is fine for such a light camera as this.
Out of all the filters provided, I only really like the orange and pink ones the most as the other colour combinations don’t really appeal to me that much. There are three filters that are designed for the two pinhole option and three filters that are designed for the three pinhole option.
I decided that I was going to test this camera out on the beach opposite where I live. Unfortunately I hadn’t really thought about the fact it was a very windy day and since the camera and tripod I was using were so light, it did have a tendency to blow about.
Also, the colour filters are very small and flimsy. Lomography recommend storing the filters in a 35mm film canister and even provide little round stickers to label it.
However, when using the camera for the first time, I took out the original packaging with me and as I was taking out the filters on the windy beach, two of the filters flew out of the packaging (aaaarrrrhhh!).
Searching for them amongst the pebbles was literally like looking for a needle in a haystack. After searching the surrounding area for approx 20 minutes, I never found those two filters and had to admit defeat which was extremely frustrating.
On the plus side the two filters I lost were of colours that I didn’t really like so would probably never really used them anyway. However, I was still annoyed that my camera was no longer a complete set, especially on it’s first use!
I used the Lomography Colour 400 Iso 120mm film in the camera.
I tried to keep the tripod as still as possible to avoid as much blur as I could. Here is a photo I took on the one pinhole option with no filters:
Here are some photos I took using the colour filters which are best used with the two pinhole option, again using a tripod:
Finally, here are the photos I took using the three pinhole option on the camera with the colour filters:
Overall, I think the photos are quite fun and I like the colours. I prefer the three pinhole option the most because I think the colours on the filters blend better together.
Sadly, as I found this camera quite fiddly and time consuming to use, it isn’t a camera that I’ll use regularly. It will be used as and when I have specific artistic style photography shoots in mind.
In view of this, I think £49.00 would have been too much for me to pay for the camera. Although at £24.50 I think that price was reasonable for how many times I’ll use this camera in a year.
Here is a link to where you can purchase the camera online in the UK:
I’ve owned a Lomography Fisheye No. 2 camera for several months but hadn’t felt the need to blog about it until now.
The main reason was because I also have a circular lens for my Pentax K1000 which I always thought would give me better control of my shots due to it being an SLR.
Also, when I first tried out the Fisheye No. 2 camera I wasn’t overly happy with the results. I now realise it was probably due to me trying to be too sensible with the camera. I had taken some shots locally around where I live to test it out and I had used a normal colour film. Both of which I felt did not do the circular style photos any justice and they ended up looking really boring and dull.
What also hadn’t helped was that I had let the handy plastic lens cap with a strap which was attached to the camera just merrily dangle at the bottom of the camera when taking my shots and I didn’t realise whilst shooting that it would end up in a majority of my photographs like the one below:
Can you see it? The white circular thing that my dog and cat are looking at. I was most annoyed at myself for not realising this at the time of shooting but I guess I just didn’t see it in the viewfinder when I was taking the photos.
After being somewhat underwhelmed with the photos and knowing I had a circular lens for my Pentax K1000 I considered giving this camera away. Thankfully my husband intervened and talked me into keeping the camera (I think partly because he thought the actual camera looked really cool with the black and silver chrome design).
The camera remained on my shelf back in it’s original packaging for a few months, then one morning after feeling guilty about having a camera just sitting there not being used, I thought to myself, why don’t I load it with some LomoChrome Purple 35mm film and try again?
I promptly removed the lens cap and strap from the camera and popped to the local cemetery as I knew the purple film would work well there.
This time when I got my roll of film developed, I wasn’t disappointed. I was extremely impressed with the results! Here are a couple of shots I took:
What I really love about this camera is how easy it is to take multiple exposures! If I was to attempt that on my Pentax K1000 it really isn’t as simple as a push of a button like it is on this camera.
I had great fun experimenting with the multiple exposure option and here are some of the results:
I now finally understand this camera and it was really fun to use especially when using a fun film such as the LomoChrome Purple. I was also really impressed with the multiple exposure shots and will definitely be experimenting more with these.
The other great thing is that it’s fairly light so I can carry it around easily in my bag when out and about taking photos.
I’m going to try using the camera at night time next since it has a built in flash so I’ll be interested to see the results.
On a final note, I’d also like to mention that the ‘Fisheye Rumble in the Pond’ book by Lomography is a fun read. I had bought this book around the same time I purchased the camera as it gives some tips on how to shoot with the camera.
Natalie Smart Film Photography 