lomography
May 23, 2003 7:19 AM   Subscribe

Lomographic Society International. Long live the lomo. Great cameras, great photographs, great site.
posted by tomplus2 (27 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
....sigh....I actually broke down and bought a Moleskine last night. Does this mean I have to get a Lomo and take up knitting, too?
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:36 AM on May 23, 2003


International Tribal Marketing Scam. (pdf)

Form a society, sell old cheap russian (too hip!) cameras for 5 times the cost. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

I do like the mantra "Don't think, just shoot" but in general the Lomo movement, while positive in encouraging artistic expression, is really just hipsterism bath water at a premium.

as this guy says (and many others) "In my opinion cheaper and better choices for this "new" type of photography would be a used Olympus XA (XA-2 if you really want cheap and scale focusing) or a Minox GT-E (or older used model). If you want to stay "Russian" get a Kiev 35A. All these cameras will do everything that the LOMO LCA will and also take a "good photo" on those rare occasions that you actually want to do something that boring."
posted by shoepal at 7:45 AM on May 23, 2003


So--is the Moleskine trend an internet thing? Or a reality thing that crept onto the internet? I can't draw the lines any more.

I had the digital equivalent of a Lomo--a garish little Yahoo cam. That suckah would even take grainy little movies.
posted by mecran01 at 7:47 AM on May 23, 2003


....sigh....I actually broke down and bought a Moleskine

someone was beating you with sticks until you bought one, or what? do you eventually cave to every status symbol meme that ambles by? fess up, you WANTED one!
:-)
posted by quonsar at 7:59 AM on May 23, 2003


A lomo collage (and who is that good looking bass player?)
posted by mikrophon at 8:06 AM on May 23, 2003


Hey Tomplus2, I meant no disrespect to your post. I think the ILS is a topic/meme worthy of discussion.
posted by shoepal at 8:07 AM on May 23, 2003


shrewd austrian students...

but in my experiences collecting and using this sort of camera, I found that it's not expensive at all to pick up a cmena or a cmena or a lubitel or a holga. my K88 was not quite so cheap, but I have to say is still very well worth it. and for poor digtal work, this little guy has been a lot of fun.

perhaps one of the best web resources is here.
posted by dorian at 8:11 AM on May 23, 2003


shoepal: it's not the camera that takes good photos. It's the photographer.
posted by crunchland at 8:20 AM on May 23, 2003


I swear, it wasn't for me. Really. Honest, it was for my, um, girlfriend. The one I met in Niagara Falls last summer. The wine coolers, too, of course, you know, were for her, too.
posted by MrMoonPie at 8:24 AM on May 23, 2003


The ultimate in low end might be those one time use disposable cameras, eh? Although, if you went through enough of them it would get expensive. But, with a bit of experimentation you can easily turn one into a [reusable!] pinhole camera. When you buy it, the film is generally stored outside the canister and a frame is rolled up into the canister every time you advance, so shoot the entire roll off before you start prying the camera open.
posted by slipperywhenwet at 8:36 AM on May 23, 2003


also, the LCA is a basic copy of Cosina CX- series camera from 70s Japan, which can could still be had for much less than the lomo itself, the last time I checked....hm that must have been a while ago, now it looks like the CX-2 has gotten some illicit popularity from lomography and is selling at rather high prices (and some ppl selling it as a "knockoff of lomo", heh)
posted by dorian at 8:36 AM on May 23, 2003


slipperywhenwet, dig this:
we recently saw a stack of those disposables for sale, and right next to them was a stack of (very overpriced!) proprietary replacement film cartridges for the disposables (basically a normal 35mm film inside a big plastic cartridge). ha ha! the unintended humor of it all was just too much for me...
posted by dorian at 8:40 AM on May 23, 2003


lomography does have some neat cameras you cant find other places, the supersampler for instance. And someone who wants to try out a Holga (medium format) lomography for $60 has a really nice and well designed starter package that includes camera, film, instruction book, photograph book, tape (you need to tape the camera to make it not leak so much light heh.) You can get just the camera other places for $25 on the web but I still think the lomography package was worth the extra money. It got me started right away, I wouldnt have really known what to do with the camera if it just came in a box by itself. Their packaging and graphic design is top notch, all in all it made me want to go out and take pictures ;-)
posted by outsider at 8:49 AM on May 23, 2003


I looked into buying a lomo, but really, I like my pinhole much better. [self link] It is a hand built [by me] and has everything I need: a film holder and a hole. I think lomo is kind the hipster thing, but I love the supersampler - gotta dig the 4 shots on one roll format! If not lomo, I am looking at the Calumet Cadet 4x5 for large format prints. But I still use my trusty Canon G1 digital and my old SLR. I think I need to bring less cameras with me on trips, I average 3-4 cameras - it gets stupid.
posted by plemeljr at 8:59 AM on May 23, 2003


Hey Tomplus2, I meant no disrespect to your post. I think the ILS is a topic/meme worthy of discussion.

shoepal, that's ok. I didn't take it that way. I think it's similar to any "craze" - or Tribal Marketing. Like the Fisher-Price PXL 2000 video camera. Priced those on Ebay lately? Ok, it's not REALLY the same, just a little similar. Aficionados and fanatics are about the same thing.

A colleague of mine spent big bucks on a few original Lomos. He loves them. His photography reflects that. ...and that it is the bottom line.
posted by tomplus2 at 9:00 AM on May 23, 2003


hm, we paid about $10 for our holgas at some store in berkeley and even that seemed to be pushing it...

60 bucks can get you a really nice actual-vintage-not-fake-retro yashica TLR with very decent lens quality, even. much easier for beginners to be not-discouraged with the kind of quality you'd get from that vs. a seagull or holga.

ha, I had seriously considered getting one of those pxl cameras as a gift for someone who really wanted one...then she realized that she could do the same thing with her mini-dv which cost less than the pxl and a simple filter in her editing software...thank jeebus for practical womens.
posted by dorian at 9:06 AM on May 23, 2003


Hey slipperywhenwet, I think Wong Kar Wai's cinematographer Christopher Doyle often shoots with disposables when he is "on location" or visiting foreign cities. He's even got a book of his photos, but I haven't ever seen it outside of Japan. Also, there used to be a international disposable camera photography show, but I can't find any URLS at the moment.

tomplus2, I think there is a fundamental difference between the PXL 2K and the Lomo. LOMOgraphy was created and pimped to the masses by those that stood to benefit from selling overpriced and pseudo hip soviet era camera kits. Fisher-Price never intended the PXL-2K to be hip or popular outside of the 10 -15 year old crowd.

crunchland, to some degree, I agree.

Does anyone remember the name of that pointandshoot that has been discontinued, but used to be sold at places like Target and is now being sold for 5X and 10X its original price? It was really popular with Model Photographers, and glitterati.
posted by shoepal at 9:13 AM on May 23, 2003


that pointandshoot that has been discontinued

yashica T4/T5? now *that* is one excellent little camera. used to be dirt-cheap, too.
posted by dorian at 9:24 AM on May 23, 2003


Thanks Dorian, I think that is it!
posted by shoepal at 9:36 AM on May 23, 2003


The megapixel versions of the Aiptek Pencam can be purchased on eBay for less than $50, and there are no film processing fees after that. I understand there's also a new version with a flash.
posted by crunchland at 9:49 AM on May 23, 2003


yeah, the little quasi-WLF on top of the T4 makes it great for stealthy shooting in the subway. the only thing that bugs me about that camera is that the shutter lag is soooooooooo slow.

mju-II is a worthy replacement to a T4. or a gr1s or gr1v, altho that's getting a little past the cheap concept.

I must check out that pencam! definitely a lot of potential for candid shots there.
posted by dorian at 10:24 AM on May 23, 2003


Shoepal's right. For about an eighth the price of a LOMO, you can get a Kiev 35A, which will give you an almost identical photo experience. I used to have a LOMO, but sold it and got an Olympus XA2, then and XA, then a Kiev 35, then...
posted by websavvy at 10:51 AM on May 23, 2003


Forget the LOMO.

Let's start a disc camera movement. Trucker-hatted hipsters will certainly hand over kale for these models with a striking resemblence to undersized thrift store t-shirts.

Now, where to get the film?
posted by tomharpel at 11:31 AM on May 23, 2003


Hey Crunchland, this one looks pretty cool too! (expandable memory SD/mmc) Any thoughts?
posted by shoepal at 11:38 AM on May 23, 2003


Can someone recommend a good pen? I've been looking for a good pen.
posted by horsewithnoname at 12:30 PM on May 23, 2003


"In my opinion cheaper and better choices for this "new" type of photography would be a used Olympus XA (XA-2 if you really want cheap and scale focusing) ..."

Woah! I looked on ebay and I realised I have an XA-2!
posted by Utilitaritron at 1:05 PM on May 23, 2003


No direct experience with that model, shoepal. Sorry. Sounds like a good thing, though I've never experienced a time when I didn't have enough memory in my pencam. Might be good if you used it when travelling, and unable to offload the pictures at a computer.
posted by crunchland at 1:27 PM on May 23, 2003


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