Toy cameras

When I started taking pictures, I was following the made-up Lomography “ethic”, in which you're supposed to take your camera with you always, and get pictures of everything and nothing, all the time. The idea was to get a lot of uncontrolled, accidental art, using the crummy Russian Lomo LC-A camera, which tended to take arty, screwy-looking pictures. After messing around with the Lomo a little while, I started exploring some of the other cheap/junk/toy camera options, which each have their own visual quirks. I finally mostly gave up the toys because I started getting an idea of what a good picture is, and how to make them, and I started wanting more control over the outcome. To the point where it was becoming counter-productive; I was only taking pictures when I had a definite project or job, or when I thought I could get some special pictures. So I've been coming back to the toys again to get myself producing a lot of images again. And because I took some really cool pictures with them, and I'd like to be doing more of that.

So, here are some of the standard options for toy film cameras:

A way sexier picture than this
extremely humble camera merits.

Diana
This is the original artist's camera— back in the early 70s, photography students were picking these up from Woolworth's for  $1.49 and going crazy with them. They are true pieces of lowest-possible grade plastic junk, sold under dozens of different names including, hilariously, Champion, or, more fittingly, Rosko. They had a level of quality control you usually find in toys you get out of gumball machines— even the lens, which is made out of plastic. They're also really cool, weird distortions and smears of light, and heavy vignetting, and each camera is a little bit unique. It uses medium format roll film, but only exposes a 4.5 x 4.5cm portion of each 6x6 frame of film— approximately; the frame is a little skewed on mine. I usually shoot E-6 slide film, and cross-process— I ask the lab to process the E-6 like regular C-41 negative print film, which generally increases contrast and distorts the colors.

Shot with the Diana, in Paris, in 2009

For a long time they were stupidly expensive, but I was lucky enough to inherit one from my brother Scott— over the years he picked up several of them at the Goodwill, basically for free. Now the Lomography people have reissued them, with some added features, and prices on the original cameras are now much more realistic; this week I was able to get one on eBay for $10 in pretty short order.

If you want to get one of the new ones, this forum user had this to say about them:

The new Diana [...] is vastly different [from the old]... Its lens was carefully designed (yes, designed!) to mimic the old look and, to my mind, is a bit too intentionally bad, but in a good way, with lots of astigmatism on the edges, sometimes a bit too much, but it's not bad.

Holga 120N
The Holga, first available (or first popular?) in the 90's, is sort of the successor to the Diana. It's almost as primitive and shoddily-constructed, but with a little better construction— unlike the Diana, it doesn't feel like you could crush it by squeezing it hard— and a better plastic lens. Vignetting, light leaks, and softer focus near the edges of the frame are the notable artistic interest. Since they've become popular with the artist crowd, a bunch of variations have been made available, but I would stick with the straight black 120N. Like the Diana, it takes medium-format roll film. There is a 35mm Holga available, which you might be tempted to get, but it is really worth the small extra hassle to use the MF/120 version— 35mm film with a junk lens just looks crappy, and not in a good way.

Holga: Use the 120 version. 

Both the Holga and the Diana have one shutter speed, and a couple of apertures, and the world's roughest zone focusing. The reason these cameras are usable at all is that a) print film has pretty wide latitude; meaning you can get a usable image even if your exposure is pretty wrong; and b) they tend to have smaller apertures, giving you more depth of field, so you're more likely to have your subject to accidentally be in focus.

Continued after the break:

Casey plays the guitar. T400CN through the Holga with bounce flash using crappy old Sunpak flash.