The Lomography Belair X 6-12 has arrived!

The Belair X 6-12 camera has arrived! I've only been able to take a quick look, but the camera is very nice looking. It is much lighter in weight than an equivalent folding camera of similar size due to it's plastic body construction. It should be easier to carry around. I can't wait to get it home to load some film into it! I am also already planning the unboxing, and loading videos for this camera. 

Lomography Introduces the Belair X 6-12

Lomography will be releasing a new 120 format camera in December. It's a folding camera, which brings to mind some of the old 120 folding cameras, but with a few modern touches that Lomography likes to bring to its retro flavor cameras. The Belair will have auto-exposure control and an interchangeable lens system. It will come with a 90mm standard lens and a 58mm wide-angle lens. The camera will be able to shoot in 3 formats: 6x6,6x9 and a panoramic 6x12.

They will offer the camera in 3 decorative styles, from basic black to a snake style leather covering.

What is interesting is that this looks to be a more serious offering from Lomography than some of their other cameras. Granted, it's price is higher, but if you look around for similar cameras, you will find it's in good company, and the inclusion of interchangeable lenses and auto-exposure gives the Belair features not offered by other cameras in it's class.

Link to the Belair Microsite at Lomography.com: http://bit.ly/kBelair

The camera shown above is the Jetsetter model with brown leather covering.

Below are some sample photos taken with the camera (images supplied by Lomography)

Prices start around $250 for the black City Slicker model, and increase for the fancier leather clad models.

It is currently 30% off you pre-order before Dec 10, 2012. They say there is a limited quantity available for preorder.

I decided to give myself an early Christmas present and pre-ordered a Cityslicker model. (or maybe not so early, estimated delivery date is around Dec 19)

I look forward to trying this camera out! 

Seattle Lomography Adventurers Club Show

Last Thursday, I went downtown to see the Seattle Lomography Adventurers Club Show at the Pioneer Square Saloon in Seattle. I met with many of the Club members and enjoyed the photos on display. These kinds of clubs are a great way to connect with other lo-fi photographers. You can see if there is a meetup group near you by checking the Meetup.com website:

http://lomo.meetup.com/

Thrift Store Finds: Kodak 110 Film Cameras

Now that Lomography has come out with new films for 110 cameras, I have picked up a couple from my local thrift stores. These cost $2-3 dollars each. The one on the left is a Kodak Instamatic 20, a bare bones camera with no exposure controls. It uses the Magicube flashbulbs, which require no batteries. The other camera is a Kodak Tele Instamatic 608, which uses flip flash bars or a special electronic flash unit. This camera also has no exposure controls, but has a little slide switch which flips an auxilliary telephoto lens in front of it's primary lens for a little gain in the lens reach. I am working on my second roll of Orca film loaded in my Kodak Ektra 200 110 film camera.  I am looking into labs that can process this film for me, but will probably process it myself, as it looks like the cost of sending it to a lab may be rather expensive.

Polaroid Replacement Batteries

I outlined a method of converting a folding Polaroid Land camera to use AAA batteries in a previous blog post. 

http://bit.ly/kBatMod

For those of you who are not technically inclined, you can still find batteries (#531 4.5v, #532 3v) at Amazon.com.

Exell A19PX/ 531 4.5v battery

Exell A24PX/ 532 3v battery