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Anonymous
Hey /p/,

I was looking for a fisheye lens for my film SLR, but after seeing they were $500 and up, I started looking elsewhere. I came across this little camera, the Lomographic Society 35mm Fisheye camera.

Does anyone have any experience with this? I love cheap "toy" cameras and wouldn't mind giving it a shot if it's worth the $40. I've used a Holga 120 for a while, but I haven't heard of Lomographic before..

Picture related!
>> Anonymous
It's the same manufacturer as Holga, and same "quality". So a cheap plastic device to waste some film, deliberately made to suck.

If you get one for $4, you'll have a toy to play around for a day or two, and then throw in a corner if you're even remotely serious about photography. But if you get one for $40 because it's "hip", then sorry, you're a trendy pretentious tool. Who got himself badly ripped off.
>> Anonymous
>>35902

I didn't know it was made by the same company as the Holga, I love the 120FN I got a while ago for medium format film. Even after taping it up, I still get some occasional light leaks. Distorted photography is fun to play with, and that is why I was asking about the Lomographic fisheye camera. I wanted to try a different camera to shoot with, because everyone in my color class has an SLR of some type, and quite often in photo classes you see a lot of the same type of photos.

Just because I want to play with a cheap camera, doesn't mean that I'm a pretentious tool. I process all of my black and white film myself, color I bring to the lab, because E-6 chemistry is easily contaminated and expensive. I'd rather let someone else do it.

I asked /p/ about the Lomographic camera because I've found a lot of useful information here. I actually took offense to being called a "trendy pretentious tool," but it's the internet, so I couldn't give less of a shit. I know the type of person you're talking about - there's a guy in one of my color classes who is a photo student because his girlfriend is, and hates color photo because we scan color slides into Photoshop and "computers are fucking gay."

Where are you finding them for $4? Even eBay had them for $50, the $40 I said in the original post was from B&H Photo/Video, who had the cheapest price I could find (I was also going to order a Tiffen 80A filter and a monopod from them).

If you really think that its a $40 piece of shit, and a total waste, then please give me reasons other than "it's made by Holga, you are a pretentious tool," then please, let me know. So far it seems to be of better quality than my Holga 120FN, as it has a fixed focal point and a glass lens (compared to the pathetic "focus" and plastic optics of the Holga).

Thanks for you input! (even if you were kind of a jerk about it)
>> Anonymous
>>35902

pwnt.

for OP, try looking for used (but still in good condition) slrs with fisheyes.
>> Anonymous
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>>35904
Sorry for being harsh, but I'm allergic to the types who get Lomo because it's all hyped up, and can take pictures with *gasp* vignetting, aberrations, and light leaks. As opposed to adding them in PS to their snapshots from a point-and-shot digicam. Which makes them soooo much cooler than the average myspace/lj/whatever crowd. Good to know you're not one of them.

I doubt you can find them for $4. And even if you do, you'd still be overpaying. Which is a big part of my problem with Lomo. While it could be used for valid reasons you mentioned, it's just not worth it. One company holds the license, produces them at minuscule cost, and then sells them at hugely overblown price using a cheap marketing gimmick.

The other reasons? Fixed focus, fixed aperture (f/8), fixed shutter speed (1/100)... This leaves you quite a narrow range of conditions when you're going to get properly exposed photos (esp. with slides). The lens apparently doesn't cover the whole frame, so if you want a full-frame picture, you're up to some heavy cropping. The weight (0.5lb / 0.23kg) suggests it's all or nearly all plastic, so don't expect durability or precision. Maybe the lens is glass, I don't know. But I'd be surprised if it was more than a single optical element, in which case it's not going to much better than a plastic one (or a bottom of a jar for that matter).

Let's compare it to a calculator that can only add, and only even numbers. And have randomly arranged numbers on the display. And the entire Lomo philosophy can be compared to using 640x480x16 colour monitors. Because it looks "cool". And both the calculator and monitor are sold at a price of semi-decent regular ones.

Maybe there are some rare situations when this is desired. But pushing it as some sort of philosophy is a fraud. And paying such prices for such equipment while being aware of its actual worth (and you seem to be), is not exactly wise, to say the least.
>> Anonymous
>>35904
One more thing (>>35908here), I don't know what SLR you have, but fisheye lenses for most systems start at ~$50 on ebay (buy it now, too). Just search for "fisheye" and sift through to your heart's content.
>> Anonymous
>>35908
Thanks for the advice, with that I'm going to skip over it. I had actually never heard of the Lomo camera until earlier while researching lenses.

Do you know of any places (besides eBay, all I find are the fisheye attachments) that sell used lenses? Somewhat new Canon camera.

What about the attachment types? The type that screws into the threading on the front of the lens. These are a little bit more accessible, but they seem like they wouldn't do well. If they were a viable option, would it be best for the actual lens to be at the widest angle (28 on my lens) or around 50mm? It seems they're more popular in small video cameras.
>> Anonymous
>>35911

Canon EOS Rebel T-2, I was asking about those in this post;
>>35912
>> Anonymous
I have a semi-fisheye adapter for my lenses, and it works fine. Experiment with how wide you leave your lens before you get distortion - I don't own any zooms, but I found that it makes a 28mm similar to a fisheye, a 50mm similar to a superwide, and a 200mm a color-fringing machine.

At any rate, the image quality may not be the best, but it will beat that POS Lomo any day.
>> Anonymous
Get a Peleng 8mm fish eye lens.
>> Anonymous
Man, that dog in the lower left part of the image is so cool, if it only was a video and he'd have a hat.
>> Anonymous
>>35899

in simple terms its a pile of shit that will produce images that are nowhere near an actual fish-eye lens.

that would be fine if they didnt have insane prices.
>> des
I think every fisheye picture I've seen doesn't say anything but "this was taken with a fisheye"
>> Anonymous
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sheesh, such nattering nabobs of negativism.
Would you be interested in comments by someone like me who actually owns one?
Lighten up guys, it's fun.

Camera-Specific Properties:Equipment MakeEastman Kodak CompanyCamera ModelKodak CLAS Digital Film Scanner / HR200Camera SoftwareKodak Digital Central Lab SystemImage-Specific Properties:Image OrientationTop, Left-HandHorizontal Resolution256 dpiVertical Resolution256 dpiImage Created2005:10:20 12:49:50Color Space InformationsRGBImage Width1536Image Height1024
>> Anonymous
>>36066

right. so what you've just shown is that the camera doesnt even have a real fish-eye lens.
>> Anonymous
>>35899
Seriously.
Fisheye lenses get boring very soon after you get them.

You take some pictures and it's all cool and nice and stuff but after you experiment a bit there's nothing new you can get out of them.
>> Anonymous
>>36096
The same thing could be said about any lens.

300mm telephoto lenses get boring very soon after you get them.

You take some cool pictures of far away things and it's all cool and nice and stuff but after you experiment a bit there's nothing new you can get out of them.

It's the subject, not the lens that makes the photograph.
>> Anonymous
TARGET Has a cheap one, unless that one is from target and you've already figured that out
>> Anonymous
lomo cameras are amazing! iv'e had the fisheye and the original lomo, along with a few others. they are incredibly unpredictable and always have a fun shot.
>> Anonymous
closest thing to a lomo ill ever get is a Zenit-S.
>> thefamilyman
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tip: never buy a lomo from the lomography website, they charge big $$$

this is my little lomo i got, pre-lomography-crap-whatevertheyare