Lomo-- did it save film? From BBC News

Landsker said:
I started off with an LC-A, its what got me into film about 6 years ago. Im sure there are more just like me!
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Right here!
I started with a Minolta Riva Zoom 70, replacing my single use camera's I had as a child.
http://reviews.cnet.com/slr-photography/minolta-riva-zoom-70/4505-6503_7-31294936.html

Later on, I knew a friend of mine with a Lomo LC-A, and I bought that one with my first salary. Same as a leather jacked btw.

13 years later, I still wear this leather jacket. I still have this LC-A too... but
there's always a but in stories.

Should I ?

I bought a damn digital reflex camera 5 years ago... second hand, and it still shoots good. It's 6 MP, and I don't need the 30+ MP they sell in stores now!
As long as I can set up good lenses, it's fine.

On the other hand, in the past years I collected several other old film cameras, like the Russian Zorki, Lubitel, ... other rangefinders. Because I still like shooting film. But I just don't do it that often anymore.
(running out of time for scanning film, having children to care for)
 
brainwood said:
Does that not just indicate a healthy trade on film cameras ? There's clearly a market for them which means people are buying them ?
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It definitely means people are selling, but I wonder if the demand of buyers is as high as 2-3 years ago. If we could track the changes in length of postings before they were sold and the prices, we would be able to see if and how demand has changed here. Lens prices have definitely risen, but I think that's due to more people shooting full-frame digital rangefinders than picking up film bodies.
 
I think it is pretty simple, Lomography markets film cameras and film - others don't really. Further they've looked for new audiences to market to - and others don't really. What if lomography weren't around? Who exactly would be pitching film and film cameras with this much fervour? Even Leica seems as though they'd be perfectly happy if people would stop buying those darn film cameras at this point. I'm not a fan of Lomography's products myself, but they're cheering louder for film users than any other company is.
 
I cheer on Lomo's efforts at marketing film and film cameras, although I'm less than pleased with their cameras, mainly the lack of adequate exposure control, most of them offering only one or two apertures, a single shutter speed plus bulb. I can live with plastic lenses and fixed focus, but as expensive as film and processing can get, you need to nail the exposure in order to get a high rate of keepers.

I'm thinking about experimenting with ND filters in order to get a wider range of exposure control with toy cameras, starting with fast film (ISO 800 or 400 pushed) and adding ND filters as needed to get proper exposure in varying lighting situations, using a handheld meter for reference.

While many purists might criticize toy cameras for their lack of 'quality' (whatever that might mean), there are enough faux toy camera effects from Hipstamatic, Instagram, et al that there is now some cultural street cred to the look derived from toy film cameras.

~Joe
 
Once upon a time I'd buy a second-hand camera and a film would come with it and I'd throw the film away because it was an unknown quantity: no box and no date and uncertain storage. Thanks to Lomo I can sell it on ebay...

Regards, David
 
Michalm said:
I think to myself the minute Lomo crowd gets bored with film stuff the price of it will go up but it will be still manufactured like Vinyls are just in the lower volume.
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Will the "range finder crowd" get bored with film? Some will, some won't. I don't think the Lomo user base is any more easy to categorise than any other.
 
I don't think it is a matter of getting bored with it. It's just easier now to get the same effect with an app. As soon as the hipster vibe for lomo passes, junk cameras will also disappear. I notice Freestyle has a lot fewer Holgas listed in their latest catalog than in the past.
 
Pickett Wilson said:
I don't think it is a matter of getting bored with it. It's just easier now to get the same effect with an app. As soon as the hipster vibe for lomo passes, junk cameras will also disappear. I notice Freestyle has a lot fewer Holgas listed in their latest catalog than in the past.
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There will always be an appeal of "authenticity" with lomography, just as there are plenty of people for whom only a certain brand of camera or film will cut it. As well, sometimes being different for the sake of being different is a good thing, if it keeps film manufacturers happy enough to continue on for the rest of us. :)
 
Pickett Wilson said:
It's just easier now to get the same effect with an app.
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Lomographers are not interested in "easy apps". They want the real stuff. It is just more fun and more authentic for them.
Young people grown up with digital are often bored by digital. It is their daily life. Nothing special.
And therefore they want something different, tangible. Like film and Lomography.

Pickett Wilson said:
As soon as the hipster vibe for lomo passes, junk cameras will also disappear.
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There is no "hipster vibe" for Lomo. You simply does not not know the Lomography Community. The big majority of them are just normal young people.
If you would meet them or regularly visit one of their shops you would see it.
Your "hipster talk" has nothing to do with reality, it is just a virtual phenomen in some photo forums.
And all these statements that it is only a short dated vibe or fad are already proven wrong: Lomography celebrated its 20th Birthday this November.
And they are still growing with growth rates of about 15% p.a.
Even after 20 years.

[By the way: The CIPA (organization of Japanese camera manufacturers) just published the data of digital camera sales of the last months: almost all categories have decreasing numbers, digital compact cameras are in free fall, - 50% over the last months).]
 
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Of course digital compact sales are falling. They have been replaced by cellphone cameras. A fall in sales of digital cameras would be meaningful to the discussion only if the sales of new, consumer film cameras were increasing at the same rate.

I expect, eventually, sales of digital cameras will decline significantly as younger people move to cellphone cameras and get bored with uploading hundreds of food photos to Facebook. They are just waiting for the next "new big thing" in technology.
 
The real money seems to be in "RF like" enthusiast cameras in the $1000 up price range. It seems like a lot of folks are chasing the introduction every few months now of new cameras in this category, bouncing from camera to camera.
 
Pickett Wilson said:
The real money seems to be in "RF like" enthusiast cameras in the $1000 up price range. It seems like a lot of folks are chasing the introduction every few months now of new cameras in this category, bouncing from camera to camera.
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Probably not, because due to the CIPA numbers also this segment isn't so strong anymore and see a small decrease. Market share in Japan fall from 46% to 40%. In Europe, USA and Asia also a bit weaker recently. Market share in EU, USA is only 12%, in Asia about 20%.
 
Perhaps just the cycle of interest in photography in general. It was hot in the 1980's, not so much in the 1990's, digital revived it in the 2000-2012 period. Maybe we are just on the way down, again. :)

Still, I think it is mostly cellphone cameras that are eroding sales in dedicated cameras.
 
Probably we see three things here:
1. Market saturation. Anyone who wanted a digital camera now has one, or even more.
2. People begin to realize the very high costs of permanently buying a new digital camera after 2-3 years.
3. A majority probably now think that their current cam is now "good enough". They don't feel the need to participate in the "upgrading race" anymore, especially realizing the high costs of being such a victim of digital camera marketing.
 
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It was part of what got me into photography in general.

A girl in college gave me a holga, and it sat in a drawer for years.

I pulled it out one day, bought some film on a whim, shot it, and had it processed and printed.

35mm was easier. I bought a Lomo LCA.

So it was as thus: Holga->Lomo LCA ->Yashica Electro 35 -> Leica M

There was a Horizon swing lens in there somewhere.

Still stuck in the Leica M hole. My iPhone is my only digital camera.

Thinking back, Lomo was the animus for my interest in 35mm film.

I hope they keep it up, and then some. They are nothing but good for film.

A gateway drug, so to speak.
 
Skiff said:
Not only the magazine article was published, but they also had an interview on BBC World News, so they had a presentation on international television:

http://www.lomography.com/magazine/news/2012/11/27/spotted-lomography-on-bbc-world-news

Well, that's cool.
I only wish the Ilford, Kodak, Fuji, Adox, Freestyle, Foma or Maco guys would show such initiatives.......
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Interesting addition to the mix-- I see one Belair X 6-12 sold out.

I shot some digital images for a friend last week using her camera, did not chimp, and was surprised a bit when she posted them-- I recall some people' s recommendation that you let negatives sit around a bit before you print them for a relaxed perspective.

I have old plastic box cameras, probably from the same shop in Prague, that have some very basic settings, but a similar simple lens-- + as they were made in Europe, they are 120-- many interesting old domestic cameras use various hard to find US film sizes which throw a road block up, but there are more of the LOMO style out there.

Nice to see the stimulus from the group in the UK, interesting to see current products in the mix.

Regards, John
 
The more important question is if people still trust photos.

These days if a photo looks really good, the immediate question is what sort of workflow was used and what was done in photoshop to enhance or manipulate the image.

Whether you shoot film or digital, no one is going to completely trust your images. The better it looks the more suspect the image is and the worse it looks similarly the suspicion is that its made to look like that.

I'm sure a lot of people are thinking how to move photography beyond this stagnation but until that happens the camera market will shrink even more.
 
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