A toy camera is a simple, inexpensive film camera.
Despite the name, toy cameras are fully functional and capable of taking photographs, though with optical aberrations due to the limitations of their simple lenses. From the 1990s onward, there has been interest in the artistic use of such cameras or recreation of this style, both with cameras originally designed for children, and others originally intended as mass-market consumer cameras.
Many professional photographers have used toy cameras and exploited the vignetting, blur, light leaks, and other distortions of their inexpensive lenses for artistic effect to take award-winning pictures. [1] Toy camera photography has been widely exhibited at many popular art shows, such as the annual "Krappy Kamera" show at the Soho Photo Gallery in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York City. Various publications such as Popular Photography magazine have extolled the virtues of the Diana camera in its own right as an "art" producing image maker. Several books have also featured the work of toy cameras such as The Friends of Photography's The Diana Show,Iowa by Nancy Rexroth, and Angels at the Arno by Eric Lindbloom.
Lomography is a photographic style which involves taking spontaneous photographs with minimal attention to technical details. Lomographic images often exploit the unpredictable, non-standard optical traits of toy cameras (such as light leaks and irregular lens alignment), and non-standard film processing techniques for aesthetic effect. [2] [3] Similar-looking techniques with digital photography, often involving "lomo" image filters in post-processing, may also be considered Lomographic. [4]
While cheap plastic toy cameras using film were and are produced by multiple manufacturers, Lomography is named after the Soviet-era cameras produced by the Leningradskoye Optiko-Mekhanicheskoye Obyedinenie (LOMO).
Lomography has been a highly social pursuit since 1992, with local and international events organised by The Lomographic Society International (Lomography, a commercial company selling analogue cameras, films and accessories). [3] The company continues to promote the Lomographic style; however, it is not necessary to use the company's products to take Lomographic photos. [4]
"Lomography" is claimed as a commercial trademark by The Lomographic Society International, associated with a photographic image style and a film camera movement and international Lomography Community. However, it has become a genericised trademark; most camera phone photo editor apps include a "lomo" filter. [4]
The Lomography name is inspired by the formerly state-run optics manufacturer, LOMO PLC of Saint Petersburg, Russia that created and produced the 35 mm LOMO LC-A Compact Automat camera, now central to Lomography. This camera was loosely based upon the Cosina CX-1 introduced in the early 1980s. [5] The LOMO LC-A produces "unique, colorful, and sometimes blurry" images. [6]
The Lomographic Society International was founded in 1992 by a group of Viennese students interested in the LC-A, a camera created by LOMO PLC of Saint Petersburg, Russia. [7] [8] [9] Lomography started as an art movement through which the students put on exhibitions of photos; the art movement then developed into the Lomographische AG, a commercial enterprise. [9]
Lomography is a commercial company headquartered in Vienna, Austria, which sells cameras, accessories, and film. [3]
Lomography signed an exclusive distribution agreement with LOMO PLC in 1995 — becoming the sole distributor of all LOMO LC-A cameras outside of the former Soviet Union. [10] The new company reached an agreement with the deputy mayor of St Petersburg, the future Russian Prime Minister and President, Vladimir Putin, to receive a tax break in order to keep the LOMO factory in the city open. [3]
Since the introduction of the original LOMO LC-A, Lomography has produced a line of their own film cameras. In 2005, production of the original LOMO LC-A was discontinued. Its replacement, the LOMO LC-A+, was introduced in 2006. The new camera, made in China rather than Russia, featured the original Russian lens manufactured by LOMO PLC. [11] This changed as of mid-2007 with the lens now made in China as well. In 2012 the LC-A+ camera was re-released as a special edition. [12] It costs ten times the original secondhand value of the old LOMO LC-A. [3]
The Lomographic Society International (Lomography) has moved on to produce their own range of analogue cameras, films and accessories. Lomography has also released products catered to digital devices, such as the Smartphone Film Scanner; [13] and several lenses such as the Daguerreotype Achromat lens collection [14] for analogue and digital SLR cameras with Canon EF, Nikon F or Pentax K mounts, inspired by 19th century Daguerreotype photography. In 2013, together with Zenit, Lomography produced a new version of the Petzval Lens designed to work with Canon EF and Nikon F mount SLR cameras.
Some have questioned the pricing of Lomography's plastic "toy" cameras, [15] which run from $100 [15] to $400 US. [3]
Cameras that have been marketed by Lomography:
The company produces 35 mm, 120 and 110 film in color negative, black and white as well as redscale. Lomography also produces its own range of experimental color-shifting film called LomoChrome. [19]
A rangefinder camera is a camera fitted with a rangefinder, typically a split-image rangefinder: a range-finding focusing mechanism allowing the photographer to measure the subject distance and take photographs that are in sharp focus.
110 is a cartridge-based film format used in still photography. It was introduced by Kodak in 1972. 110 is essentially a miniaturized version of Kodak's earlier 126 film format. Each frame is 13 mm × 17 mm, with one registration hole. Cartridges with 12, 20, or 24 frames are available on-line. Production variations sometimes have allowed for an additional image.
Medium format has traditionally referred to a film format in photography and the related cameras and equipment that use film. Nowadays, the term applies to film and digital cameras that record images on media larger than the 24 mm × 36 mm used in 35 mm photography, but smaller than 4 in × 5 in.
Subminiature photography is photographic technologies and techniques working with film material smaller in size than 35mm film, such as 16mm, 9.5mm, 17mm, or 17.5mm films. It is distinct from photomicrography, photographing microscopic subjects with a camera which is not particularly small.
An instant camera is a camera which uses self-developing film to create a chemically developed print shortly after taking the picture. Polaroid Corporation pioneered consumer-friendly instant cameras and film, and were followed by various other manufacturers.
The Holga is a medium format 120 film camera, made in Hong Kong, known for its low-fidelity aesthetic.
Konica was a Japanese manufacturer of, among other products, film, film cameras, camera accessories, photographic and photo-processing equipment, photocopiers, fax machines and laser printers, founded in 1873. The company merged with Japanese peer Minolta in 2003, with the new company named Konica Minolta.
The Diana camera is a plastic-bodied toy camera that uses 120 roll film and 35 mm film. The camera has a simple plastic meniscus lens. Originally marketed as an inexpensive novelty gift item, the Diana has been used to specifically take soft focus, impressionistic photographs somewhat reminiscent of the Pictorialist Period of artistic photography, branded in contemporary times as Lomography.
A fisheye lens is an ultra wide-angle lens that produces strong visual distortion intended to create a wide panoramic or hemispherical image. Fisheye lenses achieve extremely wide angles of view, well beyond any rectilinear lens. Instead of producing images with straight lines of perspective, fisheye lenses use a special mapping, which gives images a characteristic convex non-rectilinear appearance.
Praktica was a brand of camera manufactured by Pentacon in Dresden in eastern Germany, within the GDR between 1949 and the German reunification in 1990. The firm Pentacon was divided in mainly two parts and sold after German reunification. Schneider Kreuznach and Noble bought parts of it. Pentacon is a Dresden-based company in the optical and precision engineering industry, which was at times a major manufacturer of photo cameras. The name Pentacon is derived on the one hand from the Contax brand of the Dresden Zeiss Ikon Kamerawerke and Pentagon, because a pentaprism for SLR cameras developed for the first time in Dresden has this shape in cross section. Today's PENTACON GmbH Foto- und Feinwerktechnik is still based in Dresden. It is part of the Schneider Group, Bad Kreuznach. Pentacon is the modern-day successor to Dresden camera firms such as Zeiss Ikon; for many years Dresden was the world's largest producer of cameras. Previous brands of the predecessor firms included Praktica, Exa, Pentacon, Zeiss Ikon, Contax, Ica, Ernemann, Exakta, Praktiflex, and many more.
Cosina Co., Ltd. is a manufacturer of high-end optical glass, optical precision equipment, cameras, video and electronic related equipment, based in Nakano, Nagano Prefecture, Japan.
LOMO is a manufacturer of medical and motion-picture lenses and equipment based in St. Petersburg, Russia. The company was awarded three Order of Lenin decorations by the Soviet Union.
Rolleiflex is the name of a long-running and diverse line of high-end cameras originally made by the German company Franke & Heidecke, and later Rollei-Werke.
Lubitel refers to any of the several medium format twin-lens reflex cameras manufactured in Russia by LOMO. The design is based on the early 1930s Voigtländer Brillant camera with various improvements.
The LOMO LC-A is a fixed lens, 35 mm film, leaf shutter, zone focus, and compact camera introduced in 1984. Its design is based on the Cosina CX-2, with the difference being that it lacks a swiveling front and self-timer. It was built in Soviet-era Leningrad by Leningrad Optics and Mechanics Association (LOMO).
The Nikon FM10 is a manual focus 35 mm film camera formerly sold by Nikon Corporation. It is of SLR design and was first available in 1995. It is normally sold in a kit that includes a Zoom Nikkor 35–70 mm f/3.5-4.8 zoom lens, although a Zoom Nikkor 70–210 mm f/4.5-5.6 zoom lens is also available. An electronic companion model known as the FE10 was also sold at one stage.
Smena is a series of low-cost 35 mm film cameras manufactured in the Soviet Union by the LOMO factory from 1953 to 1991. They were designed to be inexpensive and accessible to the public, made of bakelite or black plastic for the later models.
Analog photography, also known as film photography, is a term usually applied to photography that uses chemical processes to capture an image, typically on paper, film or a hard plate. These processes were the only methods available to photographers for more than a century prior to the invention of digital photography, which uses electronic sensors to record images to digital media. Analog electronic photography was sometimes used in the late 20th century but soon died out.
The Diana Mini Camera is a plastic box camera that utilizes 35mm film, and is a part of a long line of lomographic cameras known for taking photos vibrant in color with deep saturation and vignettes shot through a plastic lens. It is capable of taking 72 exposures per roll of film in "half-frame" mode and 36 exposures in "square" mode. It can also take multiple exposures. Modeled after the original Diana camera, the Diana Mini is one of many reproductions and re-imaginings of the Diana camera by the Austria-based company, Lomographische AG FN: FN 134784. The Diana Mini is one of several new production versions of the Diana camera currently available as the Diana+ series, produced by Lomography.