Remember those inexpensive 35mm cameras that needed film and a flash cartridge? I always loved to take photos so I had tons of them, along with rolls of film stacked on shelves (most of them probably went bad before I even had them developed). When I got serious about photography, and started learning about the relationship between aperture, shutter speed and ISO, I had already acquired a digital SLR camera and film was really of no use to me; but, there is something about film that always left it to be desired.
My husband came home today with two suitcases. A family friend is trying to sell his house, and in the process of going through his attic, he came across some belongings of a relative that had passed away. My husband told me that I should go through the suitcases, in what I am guessing was an attempt to surprise me, keep what I wanted and throw the rest out. He gave me very little information about what was actually in the suitcases, only that the relative was a flight attendant.
The suitcases were mostly filled with tons of pins from American Airlines, old beaded purses and costume jewelry. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t anyone else in the family that would want some of this stuff. As I went through one suitcase, my husband went through the other and to my surprise, he pulls out a Canon camera bag! I couldn’t wait to find out what was inside.
I was hoping to find a film SLR camera and my excitement deceived me at first. The camera inside was pretty heavy and even came with a flash and flash bracket. The only information I could find on the camera was the name Canon and Camera “A. I searched and searched the internet for old Canon film cameras but came up with nothing that matched what I had in my hands. Finally after much frustration, I found the Matsui trademark on the inside of the front cover of the manual. I did a Google search and came up with one blog post to wet my appetite. You can view that blog here: Click me!
In the words of Patrick Potts, this camera was a “lomography gem.” Lomography is a fun new style of artistic experimental photography. It can be characterized by snapshots that are surreal, vignetted, have off kilter exposure, oversaturated colors, blurring and strange angles. Lomography seems to have come from the discovery of a cheaply built Russian camera, the Lomo Kompakt Automat, and a photography experiment. Since then, several cameras have been found to produce Lomo-like results and some cameras, such as the Holga, have even been specially marketed to produce this effect. To see a cool video and sample photos of Lomo photography, check this link out.
The camera’s features not only include a flash and flash bracket, motor drive, and red eye reduction, but also comes with an “Easy Viewer” on top of the camera. This makes it easy for those of us who wear glasses (although the image appears reversed) to take a photo. It uses two ‘AA’ batteries and standard 35mm film.
I spend a lot of time in photoshop trying to simulate lomo photography and other film development processes, so I cannot WAIT to get my hands on some film, start shooting from the hip, and start creating some genuine lomo photographs!
Be sure to look out for pics from my newly acquired film camera!
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