Lomography LC-Wide: Initial Review

The Lomography LC-Wide has been on my radar and wishlist for the last couple of years. In this article, I give you a quick review and my first impressions about my new favourite 35 mm camera.

My infatuation for wide angle shots are evident in my choices of cameras (i.e. Belair 6-12, Spinner 360, and Sprocket Rocket) and I have wanted to add the Lomography LC-Wide into my growing camera collection for some time now. So at the beginning of the year, I finally made the jump (with the help of my piggies and a 20% coupon code) and made this baby my own.

The Lomography LC-Wide, introduced in 2011, is a take on the original LC-A but with a 17 mm Minigon 1 ultra wide angle lens. This handy little camera measures 108 × 68 × 44.5 mm and weighs 220 grams. The aperture can go up to a maximum of 1:4.5 and the shutter speed, up to 1/500.

The first thing I notied when I received the camera via the Lomography shop is the lovely packaging. The camera comes nicely packed in a beautiful wooden box with its accompanying book filled with stunning photographs taken by other Lomographers with the LC-Wide. It also comes with a wrist strap, shutter release cord and batteries.

The camera is relatively easy to use. It has a built in light sensor (hence the batteries), and takes the guess work out of exposure timing and fiddling around with shutter speeds, you just need to set the ISO/ASA setting via the little reel in front of the camera and the camera sets the shutter speed. I love this feature, as I am notorious in forgetting to adjust the shutter speed and am prone to taking photos that are underexposed.

My First Impressions:

• I’ve put a few rolls through this camera (both slide and colour negative) and I’m already loving the results. You can get stunning vignetting where the corners darken and the zone focusing (0.4 to 0.9 and 0.9 to infinity) makes focusing a breeze! All you need to remember is that the lever up is close up and lever down is everything else.
• The switch for multiple exposure can be found in the bottom of the camera, and you are just a click away from multiple exposures. You can go double, triple or as many times as you want!
• Unlike my other plastic cameras that take 35mm film, this camera gives me decent control over my shots and is light enough for me to travel with. I’m planning to take this camera with me when I head over to Europe for a month!

Keen to Try:

• This camera has a half/full frame function, meaning that you can save your film and take 72 shots on a single 36 exposure roll or you can be crafty and have some insane overlapping shots. All you need to do is shoot at half frame without inserting the HF plastic frame in the film chamber!
• My next purchase will be the Instant Back. Mixing instant photography with the cool vignetted wide angle shots would be amazing! I’m also eyeing the Splitzer so I can splice and dice my images :)
• Square format can also be achieved with this nifty LC-Wide. All you need is to insert a plastic frame in the film chamber (just like the half frame) and you can get square images, because we all know that it’s hip to be square :P

written by amytam on 2013-06-20 #gear #wide-angle #review #favourite #vignetting #lomography #lc-wide