When a Lomo Camera Fails in the Forest, Do I Care?

I have a love/hate relationship with Lomography.  I'll start with the latter part of the equation first.  The cameras are overpriced and they fail way too often.  I work in a camera store, we carry Lomography cameras, I get to see the defective rate firsthand.  It sucks.  Now for the love part.  I love what Lomography does.  I love how they have built up and pushed a very distinct corner of the film market.  The world of film photography is a bigger place in large part due to Lomography's work.  They have brought out films.  I have had a lot of fun with Lomochrome Purple and Turquoise.  They have the only 110 film on the market that I know of.  They offer cheap (both in price and quality) alternatives in 35mm and 120 to the pricier Kodak and Fuji films.  I love the breadth of ideas they bring to the market with their equipment.  A spinning 360 degree camera? A point and shoot fisheye?  A petzval lens for that swirly bokeh?  A medium format camera with an astonishingly wide 38mm lens? They do all this.  I just wish they did it at a higher level of quality.  Lomography is great at coming up with fun new ideas and bringing them to fruition but it never seems like they stick with the ideas to make sure they get refined to any degree of reliability.  This wouldn't be such an issue if the cameras weren't so expensive.

I can coalesce this experience into my introduction to the Lomo LC-A 120, that aforementioned wide angle medium format point-and-shoot camera.  The idea of the LC-A 120 is great.  Take a camera that makes 6x6cm negatives, give it an onboard meter for controlling exposure, allow zone focusing which is simple and quick and then ice the whole cake with a surprisingly sharp and crisp 38mm lens.  Is it as nice as the 38mm on a Hasselblad Super Wide?  Don't be silly, of course it isn't.  Then again the Hasselblad costs 3-4 times as much and won't fit in your pocket.  But even at $400 I wouldn't mind the price for a brand new medium format camera that can do what the LC-A 120 does.  Many used medium format cameras sell for at least this much and most of those sell for a lot more than this.  $400 isn't too bad.  But the first LC-A 120 I laid hands on only gave me six exposures on a roll of film.  Half the time it sounded like it was firing but the film was blank.  This is particularly frustrating for a photographer like me who really picks and chooses his photos.  I don't double up or bracket much, I don't need to, I just make sure I get it right the first and only time I fire the shutter.  I trust my cameras to hold up their end of the bargain and actually make that exposure.  And then weeks later when I finally finish a roll to find out that half that span of time was never recorded in exposed silver halide is disappointing, to say the least.  

Mt. St. Helens / Kodak Tri-X

I fiddled with the batteries in the camera and by taking them out and reinserting them I got the camera to make 10 exposures a roll.  But the the frame spacing was wonky, I lost the last exposure off the end of the film.  Then my batteries got drained because of a design flaw.  When I put new batteries in I ran into the same old problem of getting 6-8 exposures out of 12.  I recently took this camera back out of storage at work (we could never sell something this inconsistent) and rejiggered the batteries.  It made about 20-30 test exposures straight... just long enough for me to begin to feel something resembling confidence in the camera and then... miss-fire.  Three more good fires and then another dud.  Ten more correct fires and another missed exposure.  

I wrote to our Lomography rep about this problem.  He was very helpful and Lomography sent us a replacement camera which seemed to test just fine; it had no issues.  So we sold it and the customer seems to be having good luck with it.  We ordered another and that one seemed ok, too.  But when your initial impression is so hit-and-miss it becomes hard to shake that.  

Still, I have taken this camera out and used it.  Why?  Because when it works it makes nice images.  It really does.  I actually like using it.  I have to admit I didn't have to pay for it either.  Lomography essentially gave my work the faulty first camera.  So now it has become the staff camera.  I can accept a free camera that is glitchy much easier than I can accept a $400 camera that is that glitchy.  

Mt. Rainier from Crystal Mountain / Kodak Portra 400

I am not intending this to be any sort of formal review of this camera.  I am not even sure what my bottom line opinion of the camera is.  Is it good?  Or negative?  Ha, mind the pun.  I just wanted to share some of my own behind-the-scenes thinking in terms of using this guy.  I will keep taking it out, I will keep making images, or thinking I am making images, with it.  Maybe at some point I will get the kinks ironed out in it.  I hope so.  I have made some images I really like with it thus far. 

I would like to make more.

St. Johns Bridge / Kodak Tri-X

On Pinhole, pt. 4: Parting impressions

Finally, we come to the end of this little series regarding my approach to pinhole cameras.  It certainly doesn't cover everything I could tell you about these cameras and there is constantly more that I am learning as I go along, too.  But hopefully it has paved the way a bit, or provided some inspiration.  If we are both really lucky this series has inspired more questions than answers and those questions will lead to photographs... pinhole photographs preferably.  I mentioned earlier in this series that the way I began wrapping my head around using these cameras was to identify their key characteristics and once I did so, I looked for images that where strengthened by the use of these features.  We covered the necessarily long exposures of pinhole cameras and how that blurs motion over time.  Then we talked about the infinite depth of field and foreshortening that comes from the amazingly small apertures they use.  To close out, I want to now talk about their impressionistic way of rendering scenes.

Abiqua Falls, Innova 6x9, 15 seconds

Pinhole cameras are not sharp cameras.  Let us start there.  Some pinhole cameras are sharper than others, but in all my experience even the sharpest pinhole cameras are softer than my Holga, let alone any of my other lensed cameras.  How sharp a pinhole camera's image is depends on a few factors.  The first factor in determining image sharpness is how cleanly made the pinhole is.  A perfectly round pinhole that is laser drilled so as not to have any rough edges or burrs and is drilled through a super thin layer of brass foil is going to project a sharper image than a pinhole made by punching a hole via sewing needle through a relatively super thick piece of aluminum soda can.  The second factor is the diameter of that hole in relation to the distance it sits from the film or digital sensor.  The longer the distance the larger the pinhole should be and vice versa. For every distance there is an ideal diameter and the closer the pinhole is to that diameter the sharper its image will be. I mention these things because since pinhole cameras are easily made at home, there is a large variety of pinholes.  Some are punched in paper or cardboard, some are hand-drilled in aluminum foil, others are laser drilled or chemically etched.  The resulting image quality then can be all over the board.  I would daresay that the average pinhole image could accurately be described as somewhat vague in its details, ethereal, abstract and yes, very impressionistic.  As the pinholes get better these adjectives become a bit less prominent.  By the time you get into pinhole images made by companies like Zero Image which are sort of the Leicas of the pinhole world, some audiences are surprised to learn that the images were made by pinhole at all. Despite how ridiculously sharp Zero Image cameras are, for pinholes at least, they are still soft and they are still impressionistic.  There is no way to get around this, nor should one try.  Embrace this impressionistic quality, don't avoid it.  There are other admirable qualities than sharpness, after all.

Lake Louise, Reality So Subtle 141 6x17, 20 seconds

Just as my pinhole cameras taught me to think differently about time, they have also taught me to think differently about sharpness.  Sometimes I feel like we get just a tad hung up on lens and image sharpness.  It's true, a spectacularly sharp image can be beautiful and engrossing at times but then again there are other times where I don't care to see the detail of every blade of grass in the foreground.  In fact, if I am busy looking at all that detail I might be distracted from looking at the rest of the image, or the message within it.  And so that is the final piece of the puzzle for me.  I go out with these cameras and I don't look for detail; I look for other elements such as light, color, mood, atmosphere.  My mind doesn't get lost in the rocks or the grass or the myriad other tiny, tiny details.  And if it does I'll use my Hasselblad rather than my pinhole.  

I used to joke that the way I would previsualize some of my pinhole photos was to take off my glasses.  I have less than perfect vision... not bad mind you, but not great either.  The world loses its hard edges when I don't have my glasses on.  The thing is, it is surprising how sometimes I can see more with my glasses off than I can with them on.  I can more easily see the play of light across ocean cliffs or the form of a falling waterfall cutting through rock, or the reflection of a mountain range reflected mysteriously in a still lake.  Without my glasses I may not be able to count branches in a tree or grains of sand at my feet, but I can better see a certain character of a forest or the history of a beach.

Lastly, I don't look at nearly as much painting as I should but one of the most moving experiences I ever had with painting came in a visit to the Orangerie in Paris.  There, in circular rooms, massive panoramic paintings by Monet are housed.  They are incredible.  I was engrossed.  There is so much to see in those scenes, yet the small details themselves are largely non-existent.  Monet manages to convey more through impression than many do through specific detail.  That is how I try to use my pinhole cameras, to convey through impression rather than specific detail.  Hopefully it works because I cannot paint to save my life.

So here we are, at an ending.  Thank you for sticking through this series and reading all the way.  I appreciate the comments I have gotten thus far with previous posts.  I will very likely write further pinhole essays in the future but for now I want to wrap this up and move on to other topics.  If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments section, I'll do my best to answer every one or to make up something that at least sounds convincing and entertaining.  Now, by any and all means, go make pictures.

St. Johns Bridge, oatmeal container pinhole, 2 minutes

On Pinhole, pt. 3 - You've been foreshortened.

A couple of entries ago I mentioned that I assign three big characteristics to my pinhole cameras and the images they make.  I look for scenes that play to these traits and are better for their inclusion.  With my last entry I talked about how pinhole cameras, due to their small apertures, need long exposures.  The second quality I want to discuss today is the other thing that comes from using incredibly small apertures: depth of field.

I think the depth of field of pinhole cameras is their defining trait, though it would be easy to think it is the long exposures.  But here is the thing, most any camera can be made to do long exposures.  I use a series of strong ND filters on all my other cameras to achieve exposures much longer than my pinhole.  I do not own any other camera that operates at f250 though and therefore, I have no other camera that has the depth of field of my pinholes.  How deep a depth of field does one get with these cameras?  Well infinite would not be technically accurate but it sure seems close to it.  I am not sure I have ever made a pinhole image with any element out of focus, no matter how close the closest subject matter is.  I have made images with subjects as close as an inch or three from the camera.  This ability is the true defining trait of pinhole cameras.

Samuel Boardman Scenic Corridor, Oregon coast.  Reality So Subtle 6x6, Kodak Ektar 100.

So it is definitely a neat feature of pinhole cameras that they have this infinite depth of field, yet a lot of pinhole photographers I see (including myself) don't utilize this as often or as fully as we could and the reason why is pretty simple: we use tripods.  We know that pinhole cameras have slow shutter speeds so it would seem to go hand in hand that they should be securely mounted atop a tripod all the time.  This is true... to an extent, even though I know a few photographers who interestingly hand-hold their pinhole cameras during exposure.  The problem with the pinhole camera and the tripod is that the tripod raises the camera up away from its foreground.  Instead of setting the camera down on a surface to focus in on things a couple inches away and juxtapose them against distant objects taking full advantage of this seemingly infinite depth of field, the camera sits several feet away from its closest subject, diminishing this ability.  What I have done to correct this is I sometimes intentionally leave my tripod at home when I head out with my pinhole camera(s).  Not only does this force me to think outside my usual box in terms of finding stable platforms for my camera's long exposures, it also encourages me to pay attention to the foregrounds I am going to place my camera into.  This has led to some interesting photos over the years.
 

Grocery shopping, slowly.  Zero Image 2000, Kodak Ektar 100.

There is a balance to be struck though as when you set a pinhole camera like the Zero Image, or Innova or Reality So Subtle down on a surface their field of view is so wide that the foreground can occupy literally half the frame as seen in the above photo of the shopping cart.  So I have to be mindful that the foreground that is going to dominate the photo is interesting enough to justify that much real estate.  It is either that or I have to find a way to raise the camera up a few inches so that the foreground is not as emphasized.  Sometimes I use a Joby Gorillapod for this purpose but generally I will just stack my pinhole atop another of my cameras or take my fleece off and nestle the camera atop that.  Another option is to tilt the camera back a bit so its field of view is not as directed toward the foreground but of course this means that the sky and background will take over.  As I said, one must balance these things.  But I still think it a very educational activity for every photographer to now and then leave their tripods at home and get their cameras down onto things. 

Amidst the cherry blossoms. Innova 6x9, Kodak Ektar 100.

In closing, that is my advice/reminder to any pinhole photographers reading this.  These cameras of ours can do something pretty incredible: they can focus on nearly anything.  So get down low, get close, press that camera up against walls or other surfaces.  Set it onto interesting things and places.  You have to think both near and far.  Go see what you can find.