Junk and Cheap Camera Month: Will it or won’t it work for me?

This camera came into my possession as a swap for a camera I was not using, so effectively free.

This camera is unlike any other I have tried, I had to watch a video on how to load it. You can see that video below and hear the lovely clicky sound the camera makes.

So you load a roll of 35mm film, turn the handle, develop the film, and then spend absolutely ages trying to work out how to get the images to make a movie. That was the hardest part for me. I should have used 24 exposure film, 36 exposures is just a nightmare to scan and put together. The Lomokino takes narrow shots of 24mm x 8.5mm, which means you get 144 frames from a 36 exposure film…they all needs to be scanned. To be honest once I got about 60 in, I stopped.

And talking of putting it together, the software suggested by Lomography doesn’t seem to be available for a Mac computer. All links seemed to be dead. So I had to use iMovie, then save it in MP4 format, reload that, and then I could speed it up. The reason being I could not get iMovies to speed up photos, only videos. I found that process out after I had searched for an alternative software and failed. I did not have the LomoKinoScope or the Phone Scanner, which might have made the experience more enjoyable.

But for me, it was all very frustrating.

Anyway, before all the frustration began, I loaded the camera with Ilford Pan 400 and took it to Gigrin Red Kite Feeding Centre. I was going camping in Pembrokeshire for the first time…right when the first named storm was on the way. Lovely. I quickly abandoned camping, but did manage to complete this task and I am so glad I did. It was an amazing experience. There were hundreds of Red Kites. These birds were very close to extinction in the UK less than 30 years ago and have been reintroduced with amazing success. I have been to a couple of feeding stations, but to be fair the birds are a regular site in many places now.

Anyway, the hide I was in had a ‘lip’ where I could rest the camera so it was fairly stable. It was still hard to turn the crank without a wobble. AND it was very tricky to point the camera up, not wobble, and turn the crank.

Here is the resulting film strip and some stills from the roll.

You can see there is a massive scratch on one side, loads of grain, but there is something ethereal about them. So, what about the movie?

Once that film was finished, I loaded another, but it came out blank. I thought I might have loaded it wrong so I tried another, that was blank too. I looked closely at the camera and the crank was no longer activating the shutter. I took it apart and the small plastic piece that flicks the shutter mechanism had broken.

So the question: Will it work? Well, it did…but not any more so it will be consigned to the junk bin.

I can see this is going to be a frustrating month 🙂

You can read another review of the Lomokino here.

And see results created by others, here.