Smena Symbol - Not Your Ordinary 35mm Point and Click Camera

Oh how those beautiful people at Lomography headquarters must have felt when they crafted this beautiful successor to the lovable Smena 8M.

A camera like the Smena Symbol take a little patience. On one hand, its design reels you in. It’s fits snug in the palm of your hand and feels like it’s always been there. Its metallic body already feels more substantial than the Smena 8M and feels less like a plastic toy camera and more like a ‘real’ camera.

It’s features demand more of you than some of the automatic functions of the LC-A. The aperture is set by a little dial around the front of the lens. You go from f/4 to f/16 with your standard shutter settings of 1/250 through to 1/15 and ‘B’. Focusing is pretty straight forward, you have your little symbols around the lens barrel to guide you. I found that the barrel goes from just under 1m and heads off into the sunset just after 10m (it also gives you the equivalent distances in feet).

If you’re into double exposures then you’re gonna have to do it the old fashioned way with this baby as the film advance lever is coupled to the shutter release. So once your done with your roll, carefully rewind it, reload and shoot again. This camera continues to amaze me with it’s easy going feel. It’s equal to the LC-A in terms of quality and it’s Triplet lens gives super sharp images.

Whatever the weather and whatever your film of choice, the Smena Symbol is waiting to fulfill your every Lomo desire!

written by mattydk on 2009-09-02 #gear #rangefinder #review #smena-symbol #lomo