sllɐqǝʎǝʎzznɟ

I hate doing this but again … I had to take a deep breath and send another one of my toy to hell. This time it’s the Diana Instant Back that I bought recently. From some photos I took in Hong Kong, I realised that there are ‘hotspots’ in the center of the photos I took outdoors … especially on sunny days. Checked the internet and found some people complaining about this in Flickr and apparently Lomography has acknowledged this problem and have already ‘redesigned’ a new batch of ‘correction’ lens. The ‘correction’ lens is the little black thingie with a lens that is supposed to be attached to the inside of the Diana camera before you are able to use the Instant Back. Lomography told me that they will send me a replacement one … so that ain’t too big a problem … but …

Example of a photo with the ‘hotspot’

There is another problem. The film counter on my Instant Back will stop at frame 7 and gets stuck there. Not too big a problem because it’s only the counter. The film will still eject as per normal. However … this is one problem sometimes when I am out shooting. I usually don’t count the number of shots and rely a lot on the counter. So I wrote to Lomography and they told me that since shipping back to them will cost me a lot, they asked me to ‘kill’ the Instant Back and send them some photos that I’ve ‘killed’ it and it is no longer usable.

The last time I did something like this was to the Leader camera (check it out here). This time … it ain’t that easy. Well I could get past the heartache of smashing up that toy but the darn Instant Back is tough! Really tough! I tried throwing it on the floor and not a single crack! I tried smashing it with a hammer and only some scratches were shown! So I tried burning it with a lighter (on the back cover) and only saw a burned mark after several minutes. Man this is crazy! Maybe I need to put it on a stove for half an hour to melt it. So I gave up.

I finally engaged the posse from Fitzand’s ‘animal collection’ to do the work …

These photos are on the way to Lomography as I’m typing this. Hope they will send me a replacement as soon as possible.

Don’t try this at home unless you have an animal posse at home like I do.

RIP … Instant Back … I’ll miss you (until the new one arrives)