Customer Reviews

Lomography LC-A+ Camera Pack

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I am a professional photographer and have been exploring the use of toy cameras for quite a few years now. I have fallen in love with my numerous Holgas and decided to give the Lomo L-CA a try, I was not disappointed at all. It is a great little camera that is nearly bullet proof. I carry it with me every where I go and so far (about 60 rolls) it has not failed me once. The automatic shutter speed is a fantastic aspect of this camera and nearly always produces exactly what I feel that I need for a specific situation. Taking multiple exposures is also incredbibly easy with this camera and I find myself using it for that more than anything else simply because it is so easy. Also the wide angle lens is a great help when you are shooting from the hip and or dont have time to look in the view finder, in fact I almost never look through the view finder.
Overall it is a great little camera that I would recommend to anyone of any skill level.

I absolutely do not regret buying my lc-a+ and recommend it to anyone wanting to try shooting a film camera. It goes with me everywhere and I take pictures of whatever catches my eye (it's a good idea to load up on cheap bulk film for this reason!). I've never been much for photography, but that's changed since purchasing the lc-a. I honestly find myself more aware of my surroundings, even when I don't have my camera with me. Some features not to be ignored: long exposures, multiple exposures, rear curtain flash (hotshoe!).

I was really excited to get this camera. After opening it I knew I might be the victim of a great creative marketing campaign. The cool packaging gets you excited. The camera itself is awesome looking and feeling too. What I really liked about this camera over my holga was that it prevents you from taking a double-exposure unless you intended to and the ease of getting 35mm developed over holga's 120. But then I got my photos back from the lab.... and i knew at that instant i would be returning the camera. The only "affect" is that the pictures were lousy, some overexposed, most blurry. Maybe for $100 I would have kept it just for how fun it is to use and only for double exposures at that. But for $240 I'd rather buy a zillion rolls of film for my holga which offers the vignetting and dreaminess I expected in this camera.

Great fun, if you are looking at this camera then you probably already know what to expect from it. I researched a lot before I picked it up...considering the price I wanted to make sure it was what I wanted. Unfortunately I couldn't find many user reviews about it. Now I think I know why, there is nothing I can review really that you don't already know about the camera from just a little bit of research....because it's just a simple little film camera.

I tried a LOT of different digital cameras after getting into photography a few years ago, DLSRs, compact digitals like the Canon G9....not what I wanted. Now I can just load some film and shoot. This camera has put the fun back in photography....and winding your film between each shot and loading/unloading the film is just cool. I don't miss digital one bit and doubt I'll ever go back. This camera is just too much fun. It's small and light, and produces images that no other camera can come close to.

I highly recommend trying it out, even at this price...

If you haven't had fun with film lately, pick one of these up and go out and start shooting. It takes any speed of film (up to 1600) and does a fantastic job of auto exposing it. Even if it's pitch black outside and snowing, as long as you have a tripod, just press that button down, and when it finally goes "click" you'll have a perfectly exposed shot. The zone focusing system takes a little getting used to, espically for us Yanks, since it's in meters, but just put a little piece of tape over it with the imperial equivalent, and you're golden.

I am a street photographer and have used many cameras including an awesome Minolta CLE which takes Leica lenses. But I keep coming back to this Lomo LC-A+ camera, fits so perfectly in my purse, so convenient. I like the zone focusing because even the in between settings the lens still moves so you can use the in between the click marks for your estimated distance, and it works great. I have one for a few years now, at least over 4 years. All the vinyl came off, but I found somewhere a leatherette brown type vinyl and replaced it myself around the camera and it seems like it will last for a long time. I do not take "Lomo" type of photos in fact it is hard to tell they come from a lomo except when taken in bright light at the beach with lots of blue sky, that is when it is easiest to see the vignetting. I don't like to call this camera a toy camera, because to me it is not in the same league as the Holga and Diane and all those camera. This is a real camera that takes very sharp photos, more in the league of the Olympus XA and Olympus epic category. Just a nice all around compact camera, the Lomo Kompakt!

If you are reading this, you are probably one of those falling victim to the over-hype of Lomography.
Sure, it's a cute little compact camera with wacky bad glass, but the thing is- it's a piece of junk.

I'm an actual photographer. Back in the late 90's this camera had a fleeting "look" that clients asked for. We bought 4 (back in 1995, these were $25 each direct from the Krasnigorst) stripped, tuned and tested...to get ONE working field camera, and still unpredictable results~ which is bad when client $$ is on the line. I suppose it's fine if you are a hipster and dont care about repeatability.

I've owned 6 of these. Here's a laundry list of things that DO go wrong:
Sprocket gears strip out
Rewind knob breaks easily
Film door button stays 'clicked' in open position
Hot shoe connection is constantly shorting
the "A"(for determining exposure automatically) has a horrible sensor

Yes, it's a certain look, especially if you never saw a Photonica catalog from the late 90's. But there's about a million other Old Tech cameras that are better designed, more reliable and still have funky glass (Canonet QL17??). Not to mention they'd be about $200 cheaper.

The LC-A feels surprisingly durable, with a nice heft when it's in the palm of your hand. It is easy to use, and the shots come out just as I'd hoped: quirky, unexpected, and beautiful.

The camera has a few flaws: first, the strap on the side gets in the way and prevents easy opening of the film compartment. In addition, the ISO dial is hard to read. And, this is a nit, but the illustration on the front of the camera is cheesy and unnecessary.

Nonetheless, I love this camera, and have enjoyed shooting 4 rolls so far.

I have owned several Lomo LC-a cameras, and enjoy using them very much. This little camera does seem to take pictures that look distinctively different from the same shot, taken with a different camera. Most research seems to attribute this to the unique 32mm "Minataur" lens. I have not seen nor used this Chinese version, but it's probably comparable to the original Soviet version. Those are still widely available (steadily rising in price) from the usual online sources.
With this camera it is possible, with a tripod, to take great pictures in very low light, by holding the shutter open. The excellent metering system will close the shutter at the optimum time, so you don't need to guess at your exposure time. Night shots in the streets come out great with this camera.
However, along with the cult that has grown up around this camera is a "Lomo Philosophy" which flaunts disdain for the "rules" of good photography.
Shoot what you want, don't compose your shots, don't bother with a level horizon, etc. Out of focus, off kilter, uncomposed, this is all "art" to these Lomoheads. This is called the Art of "Lomography". Art, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, but almost all of the online galleries which feature photos taken with the Lomo seem to me to be universally ugly. Just my opinion, but there it is. Have fun, whatever you do.

I purchased this camera in July of 2008 after a long bout of curiosity. I had used several other small, plastic cameras in my lifetime but never the "vaunted" LOMO L-CA+. Well, now I wish I never had. I shot two rolls of Fuji Velvia with this camera and 95% of the shots looked totally unexposed (not underexposed but literally unexposed.)

I really do not know what happened. The film was from a box of 20 that I had used successfully with other cameras for months. The film was also developed at the same pro lab here in NYC that successfully processed hundreds of rolls before these two with no hiccups. I set the correct ISO, confirmed that the batteries worked, and listened to the shutter actuations as I used the camera -- short and crisp in daylight, longer indoors, etc. I also confirmed that the film was advancing fine. If photons managed to penetrate the lens of this camera, the film itself sure didn't catch many of them.

Because I did not use the camera until several weeks after it arrived and then waited another week to take the rolls down to my lab, I am now outside of Amazon's 30-day return window. Goodbye $285!