Smena 35 with Kodak T-Max P3200

Okay, I will be honest … I have never got on with ISO 3200 film. I have tried and tried, but it just ends up going horribly wrong every time. It doesn’t matter about the camera, I have just never got good results from it. So, when a roll of Kodak T-Max P3200 showed up […]

Kamera Baukasten with Xtra 400

I loaded up the build-it-yourself Kamera Baukasten Vecco VC-20 with Fujifilm Xtra 400 and took it out to Islington, mainly in Joseph Grimaldi Park. Here are some results: These were taken fairly early in the morning on my way to work s the light wasn’t brilliant, but it seems to have coped okay. This camera […]

The AA Autolite Telewide Drive

Okay, this was the beginning of an attempt to get back into 110 photography – something I remember fondly from the dim and distant days of my youth. Way back in the days when everything was brown or a burnt orange (the real early 80’s, not the music video version) I had many 110 cameras […]

Smena 35 with Street Candy Mountain 100

Here we have one of the later camera’s from the Soviet line of Smenas, which all had the T-43 lens. It’s a zone focus camera with shutter speeds from bulb to 1/250 and adjustable apertures from 4 to 16. The body is plastic but once loaded it feels comfortable in the hand, like a good […]

Lomography La Sardina with Rollei RPX400

So I’ve had the La Sardina for a while, it’s The Guvnor special edition if I remember rightly. As with most Lomography cameras it is pretty much plastic throughout. Even loaded with film this doesn’t feel weighty in the hand and it fits in a coat pocket easily enough. it has two focus settings and […]

Prinz Candide Model 400 with Agfa APX 400 (plus re-rolling into a 126 cartridge)

126 film is a cartridge film format that’s been gone for a while. Gone, but not dead. Well, not exactly alive either. Somewhere in between. So, not dead and not alive. More . . . undead . . . yes, it’s a zombie format. You can’t buy new 126 film or, if you can, I […]

Kamera Baukasten (Vecco VC-20) with Agfa Vista 200

The Vecco VC-20 is a camera you build from a kit, which came free with a film box from Analogue Wonderland. Apart from a couple of springs it is entirely plastic, including the lens. According to one site I saw online it takes 10 minutes to assemble and a ten year-old can do it. That […]

The Diana Camera

Another review of the Diana, you say? Aren’t there enough already? Yes, there probably are . . . but here’s another one anyway. If I am honest, I went into this as a sceptic. The cult of the Diana has sometimes irritated me with vastly over enthusiastic reviews and some really bad photography disguised as […]

The Superheadz Plamodel DIY 35mm camera quick review. . .

Oh My God! What a load of rubbish. Cheap plastic parts that do not go together properly, parts that break if you fit them as directed, a casing that snaps if you try to put it together. Before you say it – yes, I have built camera kits before. The Lomography Konstuktor and the Recesky […]

Leica envy and GAS . . .

Leica. Of course if I had a Leica camera (digital or film, depending on the fever dream) and a few lenses (I guess a 35mm, 50mm, 90mm and 135mm to cover all the bases) I would be content. I would never need another camera or lens. I would use them all the time and . […]