Goodbye Diana…

It’s not a person, it’s a camera. I recently got a secondhand Diana Mini, because I liked that it was ridiculously small and light, and that you could take either square or half-frame photos with it (and switch between the two between shots). I don’t think there are any other cameras still in production that take square shots on 35mm film.  Of course, I could just take normal rectangular shot and crop it, but that doesn’t force you to compose your shot for a square.

Diana Mini

The lens is plastic, so from a technical point of view it’s a bit crap, but the shots have a certain something, a dreamy vagueness to them. I like the effect.

St Chad’s

Fish Street

And now the camera has broken, as the shutter lever, which was a bit stiff, has now snapped. I’d only shot one roll with it, so this is very annoying. This is the downside to things being light; plastic snaps. It was secondhand, so its unlikely I’ll get them to replace it for me.

I might buy another one*. Or I could save my pennies and add them to the ‘film developing’ fund.

 

 

*Or maybe it could be argued that I enough cameras already.

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Multiple Bridge

Multiple Bridge

I’ve recently bought a Diana Mini, a Lomography camera which is plastic and very very small. It takes either 24mm x 24mm square photos or half-frame photos. It is also very handy for taking multiple exposure shots with, as the shutter is mostly independent of the film winder.

Diana Mini, Agfa Vista Plus 200.

(there are more of my photos on my photo blog thing at mostlytrees.wordpress.com)

Compare and Contrast

I don’t often take the same shot on different cameras at the same time, but this time last week I did. There was some lovely haze in the distance, and I wasn’t sure if I’d got it with the film camera, so I shot it with my Fuji also.

Castle to the Bridge #1

Castle to the Bridge #2

I don’t know what you think, but I reckon that the film version has the edge over the digital version.

The top photo was taken with a Diana f+ with a 35mm film back and a wide-angle lens. The bottom shot was taken with a Fuji XF1.