Horror - FED 1 on Lomo.com

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minoruta
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As it appears in this page: http://shop.lomography.com/shop/main.php?cat=&pro=fc1
the lomographic society is trying to take over another quality product and manufacture it as a hip item for outrageous prices to be used by the so called "lomographers".
As well as this rare commemorative Moscow 1980 Lubitel 166 (not 166B or 166U):
http://shop.lomography.com/shop/main.php?cat=&pro=fc1
A technological wonder compared to the other Lubitels

and those engraved pre-60's Zorki 4's
http://shop.lomography.com/shop/main.php?cat=&pro=fc1

It is a shame.
 
Maybe not five times but certainly 3 times at least. Having said that, IF it's properly refurbished then it may not actually be as outrageous as it seems....but it is a big IF.

This does worry me though, any association of a decent camera with lomography does! I suppose for those who already own one it inflates value but for those who would like to it's not good news.

I see they're asking 10 times what I paid for a perfectly-working FED 3 too.
 
Lomography earns its bad karma by charging so much for cheap stuff. I have an ActionSampler (with flash), just shy of £50. I paid because there's nothing else like it but it must have cost a couple of quid at the most to make...
 
Kully,

When I was in college in the late 90's I worked at a one hour photo lab in a big-box retailer called Meijer and we sold cameras just like the actionsampler for $15. Lomography is a rip-off, and I would never buy anything from them.
 
they aren't a monopoly if apple and linux are around.....just happens that most software is written for MS because more people use it. Have you looked at apple's prices, they're baseline price for a notebook is over $1kUSD, I could get a comparable pc notebook that runs MS for less than half that at best buy or circuit city.

It's competition and capitalism which is the nature of the beast as well as marketing. If it wasn't for the i-pod, I don't think apple would be around today.

I guess one could take a look at nikon and canon vs. leica in the same way. Hmm M8 hint hint.......i-pod.

We the consumers have a choice as to which operating system we wish to buy. It would only be a monopoly if there were no choice but to use microsoft which isn't the case.



Lomo can charge whatever the hell they want to charge, there's always going to be suckers........is this wrong? maybe but only if you're a sucker. All of us on this site know better I hope.

(sorry for the rant, just my inner economics degree kicking in.........)
 
Two things that I think we should remember:

1> the Lomography folks are targeting a demographic that would likely _never_ consider photography, much less film photography, through what we consider "normal means." They are advertising and distributing through means that most "camera" businesses would likely never consider.

2> sure, they are charging much more for items that we can get for much less elsewhere--I agree with the sentiments there. What I can suggest, though, is that this very same demographic is one that it very "net savvy" and will very quickly learn that they can get like products for much less elsewhere. When you are on a "college budget" like I was on in my day, you shopped around for the best price whenever possible.

The combination of these two ideas, I propose, can indeed help our hobby with the exposure to a younger crowd. The same folks that are buying "action samplers" and the like will likely consider something a little more substantial later on if the interest is still there.

Just an idea.
 
It all comes down to marketing really. They have a target market that operantly is willing to pay those prices and they've hyped things up a bit by offering all sorts of accessories and have a nice website. Remember that Lomography was started by 2 Austrian marketing students who went on spring break to one of the former soviet republics in the mid 90s or thereabouts; saw some old LC-A's, bought them for next to nothing and then managed to sell them to unknowing people in the west though a brilliant marketing scheme. wham! They've got a cheap source, market the product, and then sell to make a profit. They made old film photography hip and cool for young people again through toy cameras essentially.

I recently met a kid on campus where I go to school who saw my M3 and asked if it was a holga. I told him it was a leica and he looked bewildered but pulled out a holga which he said he got for $70USD off the lomo site. Clearly the marketing scheme's working for Lomo.
 
I guess anything can be marketed successfully if your approach is right ... canned air comes to mind!

The problem is that we've all been able to pick up these very usable Russian cameras for a song for a long time now and it's kind of been our own little secret ... these people have come along and seen a market waiting to be tapped for profit and it sort of sticks in the throat a little.

I wonder if it will ultimately affect the prices that FSU's change hands for in our own classifieds ... or will we stand our moral ground and keep giving them to each other? 😛

[edit] ... I just had a horrible thought, what will happen when they realise the desirability of the Iskra. Imagine what they would ask for one of those! 😱
 
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I think the lomo.com folks are mostly harmless. If they were driving up the prices of these cameras elsewhere then I'd be annoyed, but they apparently have their own specialized audience and that doesn't seem to be happening. It brings some fresh blood to film photography, and that's ok by me. An otherwise digital friend of mine has enjoyed their fisheye camera, for example. And I do get a certain satisfaction from seeing even their usual Lomo and Holga cameras pushed to deliver interesting results (even if those results are not always to my own taste.)
 
kully said:
Lomography earns its bad karma by charging so much for cheap stuff. I have an ActionSampler (with flash), just shy of £50. I paid because there's nothing else like it but it must have cost a couple of quid at the most to make...
Click to expand...

oh, that is sad. I got one here in the classifieds for $5 USD.
 
This is the first I've heard of the "Lomographic society". What a brilliant bunch of con artists. Now ... how can I apply this marketing technique to the pile of 1970's era Japanese SLR bodies and lenses now populating my dining room ...? 🙂
 
I say bravo! As suggested on this thread, I think the demographic is people who would otherwise not be interested in photography; not as an art, anyway.

More people buying film = stronger film sales = more stable/longer life for the industry.

I don't care who is using it as long as it helps keep my favorite cameras loaded with film.
 
f/stopblues said:
More people buying film = stronger film sales = more stable/longer life for the industry.

I don't care who is using it as long as it helps keep my favorite cameras loaded with film.
Click to expand...

Just don't buy film from that site. Did you see the prices for film there??
 
shimo-kitasnap said:
they aren't a monopoly if apple and linux are around.....just happens that most software is written for MS because more people use it. Have you looked at apple's prices, they're baseline price for a notebook is over $1kUSD, I could get a comparable pc notebook that runs MS for less than half that at best buy or circuit city.
Click to expand...
That's true if you only cost Macs and PCs "up front"; check out cost of ownership and you'll find quite a few PC notebooks that end up costing more–often a good deal more–than that $1k MacBook. I should know, I spend a good amount of time fining 'em (both platforms, BTW). TCO is as big a deal with computers as it is with cars.

As far as Lomo goes: I look at them the same way I look at $250 "designer" jeans versus, say, a pair of my $35 numbers from Land's End: If you you've got to have that pair of jeans, fine. I'd rather spend the balance on film, ink, paper, and maybe a nice bottle of Chilean red to go with dinner. 🙂


- Barrett
 
David Murphy said:
This is the first I've heard of the "Lomographic society". What a brilliant bunch of con artists. Now ... how can I apply this marketing technique to the pile of 1970's era Japanese SLR bodies and lenses now populating my dining room ...? 🙂
Click to expand...
"Con artists" about that i don't know or care. All I do care about is them getting as many new , young people interested in FILM photography. If some one needs to be part of a cult, group, movement or whatever, what ever it takes, Let them lead this new wave of film'ers
Buy the way it was the Lomo society that first got me back into film photos and then from that into Rangefinders
I do know in this age of make money corporate profits first we need all the help we can get to keep new Film products comming. Even if it takes a society over pricing old products and ideas to a new user base.
Just my $.02
thanks
holgaguy
 
Aren't Holgas and Lomos also meterless? I would be more worried that "don't think, just shoot" would lead to "don't think, just wreck the mechanism of your camera by trying to change shutter speeds without cocking the shutter". But maybe I don't give Lomographers enough credit.

Matthew
 
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