Sunday, 12 January 2014

Lomography: Baby Fisheye

About a year ago now, I was bought a baby fisheye lomography camera for my birthday. This is a miniature film camera that, using special film, takes circular photos which have a bulging 'bubble' effect. Now, I've been really cautious with using up the film as there were only twenty two shots on the roll and it's notoriously hard to get processed.  However, a little while ago I finally finished it and recently I managed to find somewhere to get it processed.





Using the camera was definitely a process of trial and error. It's not digital, so there's no way of seeing exactly what you're taking and the shutter speed was so manual that it was either set at 1/100 (fine for very bright, sunny conditions) or at 'it will stay open as long as you keep the button down.' This has lead to some interesting results to say the least. A fair few of my photos came out completely black (which is frustrating since it cost £17 to get the film developed!) where as others have come out so blurry I can't even work out what they were photos of! Some of the photos however have come out quite well- they have a very soft pixel-y effect which is definitely novel. Essentially however, more came out badly than well.





But I think I've learned my lesson. I know now for the future to:
1) Only really shoot in bright conditions- trial and error with the shutter speed is interesting, but definitely not worth wasting half the film on.
2) Make sure to wind the film on accurately! I found that some of my pictures were half in, half out of the shot and I think this was due to 'overwinding' the film.
3) Get close to my subjects. The camera instructions do say to do this, but I don't think I appreciated just how close they really meant!







I've decided that I'll buy some more film and have another go and see what results I get. Despite my results being far from perfect this time around, there was just something that bit more exciting about shooting photos and waiting (and waiting and waiting) to see what they'd come out like. And who knows, maybe I'll do better next time?




7 comments:

  1. I actually got a fish-eye camera for my birthday last year but I can't seem to get the film in right. I've already wasted a few because of that :s Love the fun effect though! I really need to sort this out before festival season. Imagine the super duper cool photos you could take there! And it's so much better than to carry around a huge DSLR xx

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    Replies
    1. Oh really? On mine, the entire cartridge just slides in quite easily from the back? Maybe if you have a bigger one this is different? However, I was a bit worried when I first put film in mine so ended up watching some videos on youtube which definitely helped =)
      Hope you manage to get it all working- you're right- festival photos would look magical =)

      KJx

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  2. Gorgeous camera, and lovely photography! Am obsessed with cameras at the moment!

    Love your blog by the way!

    Scarlett x
    http://scarlettlondon.com/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Scarlett! Hopefully they'll be a bit better second time around =)

      KJx

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  3. Wow, look at that lens, that is such a cool effect! x
    Heroine In Heels

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  4. Adore lomography! I need to get a lens like this!

    ❤Tallia
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