Hacked Instax Square camera with oscilloscope lens

[nhchen]

I recently put an oscilloscope lens onto a Lomography Diana Instant Square camera. I didn’t really like the original lenses that came with the Diana Instant Square and wanted to try it with a different lens.
The lens is a Elgeet 3 inch f1.9 oscillo-navitar lens, which almost covers the Instax square format. I added a M65 focusing helicoid for focusing.


As expected at f1.9 only the centre is sharp, and there is a lot of vignetting, but I quite like the effect.

I’ve written a more about how I made it in a blog post I made. DIY hacked Instax Square Camera

Thanks
Nathan

 

[Zuiko-logist]

Very cool and very much in the Lomography spirit. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I learned two things from your post, Nathan. I did not know there was an instant version of the Diana, and I didn't know oscilloscopes had lenses!

The instant Diana is especially interesting. When I was in art school in the late 1990s, my photography professor was an old guy who started using the original Diana cameras that had been made back in the 1960s. He had several of them that he had bought new back then. Several of us students went looking for Dianas for ourselves. This was long before Lomography began making their version of the Diana. The originals had been out of production 25 years when I was in school. I have two, one of which is broken; and another that has its original box. About 10 years ago, I bought one of the Lomography versions from someone here on RFF who had bought it and never used it. Funny thing is that I have not used it either! I think I'm going to dig it out and try it. Its been 16 years since I shot anything with my old Dianas. They are cool cameras; I'm not sure why I stopped using them.

 

[Godfrey]

Very nice!

You motivate me again to put together my custom Instax Square camera, based on an Instax SQ processing unit and a Mamiya Press 23 lens mount and lens assembly. Maybe I'll finally get it put together... 😀

G

 

[nhchen]

I learned two things from your post, Nathan. I did not know there was an instant version of the Diana, and I didn't know oscilloscopes had lenses!

The instant Diana is especially interesting. When I was in art school in the late 1990s, my photography professor was an old guy who started using the original Diana cameras that had been made back in the 1960s. He had several of them that he had bought new back then. Several of us students went looking for Dianas for ourselves. This was long before Lomography began making their version of the Diana. The originals had been out of production 25 years when I was in school. I have two, one of which is broken; and another that has its original box. About 10 years ago, I bought one of the Lomography versions from someone here on RFF who had bought it and never used it. Funny thing is that I have not used it either! I think I'm going to dig it out and try it. Its been 16 years since I shot anything with my old Dianas. They are cool cameras; I'm not sure why I stopped using them.

I also didn’t know there was a Diana instant camera until I saw this one for sale. I had originally been looking for a Fujifilm Instax mini or wide camera to take apart. The Lomo Diana is a lot easier (simpler) to modify and rewire when compared to the Fuji cameras.

 

[laptoprob]

Here's my Silverflex. An early '50s copy of the very much similar Ricohflex. I mounted a Jollylook manual wrench Instax Square to the back. To achieve infinity, I had to cut about 4mm off of the back of the Silverflex. These cameras are very simple box TLR's, so no serious hardware is lost.
Picture made with this SilverStax coming soon!

 

[Godfrey]

Very cool!

...You motivate me again to put together my custom Instax Square camera, based on an Instax SQ processing unit and a Mamiya Press 23 lens mount and lens assembly. Maybe I'll finally get it put together... 😀

Sheesh. that was three days before The Catastrophe... I haven't looked at it since. Somewhere shortly afterwards, I found the NONS Instax SQ back for Hasselblad V system, bought one, and pretty much abandoned/forgot my own custom camera attempts. NONS built what I was originally trying to build, and it works very well.

Vine Art - Santa Clara 2024
Hasselblad 500CM + CF Makro-Planar 120mm f/4 T*
NONS Cameras InstaxSQ back​

It's not the same as building and using your own custom camera, but eh? I'm old and I want to make photos more than I want to build cameras. 😉

G