new toy!

it was quite a slow day in the office yesterday, so i was reading up on lomography online... and the more i read, the more obsess i got with it! i feel the lomo effects are really cool, and i just had to have it! and chatting to biow about it only made my obsession worse, coz she's also as crazy as i am over it. she kept asking me to buy it first, do a review about it and then she'll decide if she wanna get it herself... so good friend hor? :P

anyway, i know there are actually some photo software that allows us to apply lomo effects onto our photos, and some compact digital cams have the lomo functions build onto them, but i find the effects not there yet. not so "lomo", if you get what i mean! :D

ok, for those who don't know what lomography is, here're a few definitions:

lomography according to wikipedia

lo-fi (lo-fidelity) photography according to wikipedia

lomo according to the click shop

so anyway, i had my eye on this ultra wide & slim sakurasan (limited edition). so cute right??? but currently the online shop is out of stock, and it'll take them about 3 weeks to restock. but with my kind of obsession, you think i can wait for 3 freaking weeks??? so i went over to klcc after work yesterday, coz i heard kinokuniya carries some brands of lomo cameras. first, i went up to the arts section on the upper floor of kino. yeah, they had a whole display cabinet of lomo cams, but all are high-end models for more serious lomo users. i didn't really check the price there (shy lar, wanna ask the sales ppl to open up the cabinet when i've no intention to buy), but from my brief research in the internet, those models are in the price range of RM400-500 or more. i may be obsessed, but i sure ain't gonna spend that kinda money on this "toy"!

then i traipsed downstairs to the japanese section, coz another friend mentioned that sometimes there are some japanese magazines that have cheap lomo cams attached to them. and ta-da! see what i found!

ultra wide & slim (uws for short) clover san! i think this is the latest in the uws series (see the whole series here), coz even the online shop don't have it yet... so even tho' i'd love to have a pink toy cam (the sakurasan), clovers are also one of my fav plants. and i get to lay my hands on it like NOW! :D

it's sold as a magazine in the japanese section, coz basically, it IS a magazine, with a box attached to it at the back which contains a "free gift" (the toy lomo cam!)

a close-up of my clover san... and it's cheaper in kino too! in the website, they're selling for RM110 including free delivery by poslaju within malaysia. i bought this for RM118.30, but there's a discount sticker on it. meaning if we buy another item of any amount, we can get a 20% off this item... so i just grabbed a book from the "train the dragon" series (that i'm collecting anyway), and i just need to pay RM94.64 for the cam. erm, for the magazine, i mean! :P

it's a toy camera, really. very basic... don't even require batteries! just load in the film and snap. but no batteries mean no flash, so i guess no nighttime photography. but the cute thing is, after snapping one shot, u'll need to wind the film forward for your next shot... just like an antique cam! only thing is, i feel the strap should be of a cuter colour, instead of boring black, don'cha think?

the magazine that talks about lomography using this uws, but too bad it's all in japanese!

so far, i've only taken a few shots to test it out... but as it's using film, we can only tell the results after i've finished the 36 exposures and sent it to the shop to be developed. biow told me to get 24 or 12 exp film, so that they'll finish up faster and we can see the results earlier, but i forgot... hehe...

as for the feel of it... well, it's a toy. so it's very light, with a very plastic feel to it. that means we'll need to have extra steady hands when snapping... but then again, isn't blurry photos part of the effects of lomography? :D oh yeah, i've placed an order for additional lenses! these jelly lenses come in a set of 4, each giving different effect to the photos... looking forward to experimenting with them! ;)

anyway, there are actually digital lomo cams... but it doesn't allow users to preview their shots in the cam, because they don't have lcd screens on them. they only allow users to load their photos straight onto the pc, without the hassle of having to develop the films. but digital lomo cams are much more expensive, and i feel the effects are not as nice as film ones. so i guess there are pros and cons to the two, depending on individual's preferences.

i think a lot of serious photographers will scorn at lomography, coz maybe it's not even real photography? it's just pointing and snapping with a toy camera! but i love the effects... i find them ultra cool! and i feel even though these are toy cameras, to get all those effects require some sort of skills too.

and even though many people speculated that this is just a phase, which will die out eventually, i still found the effects very cool cool cool! i know, i've said that many times already, but it's still oh-so-cool! hehehe...

also, i discovered that there are hundreds of different kinds of lomo cams out there. a friend on fb told me that he has a friend who is totally into lomo photography, and she has about 6-8 different lomo cams! that is really a lomo addict! i guess it's a good thing that they're so cheap, so more people are able to explore this strand of photography... and i actually don't blame them for having so many lomo cams. cuteness factor aside (tho' it IS quite a major factor in our decision making - for me at least!), each camera has their own different features and functions. in fact, i myself am thinking of getting another one! hehehe...

photo copied from the *click* shop

this is the gakkenflex tlr (tlr = twin lens reflex), made of plastic (also considered a "toy") and it's totally different from our conventional camera. to snap a photo with this, we hold it at our waist and look down into the viewfinder, instead of bringing the camera up to our face and sticking the viewfinder to our eyes. i find this camera totally awesome! it's also a "free gift" that comes with a magazine, but this one requires us to assemble the camera ourselves... how awesome is that?! we'll be able to learn about the inner mechanics of a camera and how it works... however, tho' i pride myself in my diy skills, i'm just a tad worried that it's beyond me...

the parts will come in a box like this...

with instructions in japanese! *gulp*

but anyway, when i enquired about this in kino yesterday (to compare it with the clover san), the info counter people said it's sold out but if i want it, they can reorder for me. i think the price is around RM120. not very expensive also... hmm... should i? :P