Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim Low Cost Lomography

These are photos from the first roll of film run through our Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim. The camera has a very nice look to the images, exhibiting a good vignette, and nice plastic camera characteristics that one would expect from a good toy camera. It uses the cheaper and easier to get processed 35mm film. If you are looking for a inexpensive introduction into the world of plastic cameras, consider this one.

This roll of film was also used to test the film to digital CD option at the local drugstore. Many 1-hour labs offer this service for only a few additional dollars. By skipping the prints and only getting the film processed and transferred to CD, it will cut the processing charges down. It was very simple to load the CD and upload the images to the website.

More photos from this camera can be seen on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaiy/sets/72157619288479623/


While Vivitar is no longer making these, you can find the Black Slim Devil, a Superheadz clone at the Four Corners Store for $30US. If you are patient, you can do what we did, and keep an eye on your local thrift store and pick one up for a few dollars.

There's also a nice little fish-eye lens accessory available for this camera, also at the Four Corners Store.

Book Review: The Diana Camera - A Pictorial History by Alan Detrich

With all the interest in the recently released Diana+ and Diana F+ by Lomography, the original Diana camera sometimes gets forgotten as the original progenitor of the whole plastic or toy camera movement.

Alan Detrich first started using the Diana camera when he was a student at the Ohio Institute of Photography in 1982. Soon after, he started collecting the various incarnations of the Diana camera and it’s clones. The collection grew and grew and is probably the most complete collection of Diana cameras in the world.

This book shows all the cameras from Acme to Zodiac. I paged through the entire book, and I was fascinated by the multitude of cameras. When you thumb through the pages, you get a sense of the huge number of cameras, all the same or similar, with so many different nameplates. I have a fair number of vintage Dianas and clones, but nothing like this.

I’m glad I took the time to look at each page, because also nestled amongst the many photographs, is a letter from a woman who worked for Sino Trading Company, the importer of a Diana clone called the Sinomax. The story, while not exactly about the camera itself, lends a look into one of the many companies that chose the Diana camera to import under their own name.

The book also contains the story (or at least, one of the stories) of the origins of the Diana camera.

After the last photo of the Zodiac, there are essays on the Diana camera. Jonathan Bailey, Chris Crawford and Sean Duggan are the three photographers whose words and photos grace these pages.

This book is a must have for the avid Diana and clone collector and will be eye opening for the newer breed of plastic and toy camera photographers who use Holgas and Diana+ cameras and have no idea of the history behind them.

The Diana Camera - A Pictorial History will be a fine addition to my bookshelf, where it will sit in good company with my other Diana memorabilia, between the Diana Show catalog, and a 1971 issue of Popular Photography magazine, that has an article that discussed the use of $1 toy camera being used to teach photography at the Ohio University.