I titled this post exactly what it says on the camera, but it is one of many cameras which is a variant of the Diana. I have always wanted to try one of the original-ish versions, as I have the Lomography version with all the attachments…not that I use it very often.
The original Diana takes sixteen 4×4 shots, but this one takes twelve 6×6. It is probably one of the crappiest feeling and looking cameras I have ever tried. It is made of a lightweight plastic with a fake selenium cell on the front. It has a flash hot shoe on the top, but it would not fire any of my flashes. The lens has ‘plasticon’ printed on the front, along with speed 1/50th. That helped as I couldn’t find any real information online. The lens also says f1.8 and you can see it change when you select sun or cloud, but to be honest, it doesn’t change by much. There is no shutter lock so there is scope for multiple exposures. On the back door lever it says “Made in Hong Kong” and I think the camera was made by the Great Wall Plastics Factory.
When I looked at the shutter I could see an obstruction or the shutter not quite closing/opening fully. So I thought I would have a closer inspection by removing the plastic surround.
All was actually good, that is how it is supposed to be. And there were wires to the hot shoe, my example just didn’t work.
When I took the back off to inspect and then load the film, I was a bit shocked/surprised by the light beaming through the lever section. I was sure there would be light leaks, as the light was right on the film plane.
Anyway, not to be put off, I loaded mine with a roll of Kodak T-Max from 1996 as I thought that might be slow enough for the camera.
Here are my results, all the crappy 12 of them.
Well, there were less light leaks than I expected. But, needless to say, I probably won’t be using this camera again 🙂
Well — they name a camera after me and it’s crappy — why am I not surprised! Hahaha. There were recognizable objects, structures and even animals in most of the pictures — so technically it is a camera! But yup — not the first choice for just about any photography outing! Thank you for sharing! Now I need to find one for my camera shelf!
You can have this one. It does have your name on it!
Hee hee!!! It is *DEFINITELY* not worth cost of shipping (even on a ship!) over to me in Maryland in the US!!! But that made me chuckle! Maybe it can be converted to a bird feeder or something similar to get some use out of it! 🙂
I will think of something 🙂
Humm… The shutter thing is pretty weird… Ok, it is a crappy camera but I see motion blur and a lot of out of focus pictures. These cameras (Diana and Co.) are so light that is sometimes a challenge to keep them steady when pressing the shutter… Funny to see that you wind film the opposite way to the Diana…
Yes, it was a challenge. Usually I am OK with handheld, even at 1/30th but the shutter lever on this made it tricky. It needs a lot of movement to fire.