sllɐqǝʎǝʎzznɟ

The Lomography’s Diana Multi Pinhole Operator is a pinhole camera that allows a selection of 1, 2 or 3 pinholes to create some rather interesting/cool/bizarre photos. Those clever guys topped it with a set of colored ‘filters’ (6 of them to be exact) to let you paint your pinhole photos with crazy wild colours. Sounds like just another over-priced crappy toy from Lomography … some might say.

Being a sucker for their Diana F+ camera, I took the plunge and got me one of these rather weird pinhole camera to play with. This blog entry is to share my first ‘encounter’ with this camera … and not a review. You won’t believe my reviews anyway. Hahaha!

The camera arrived in a much smaller and lighter box compared to the Diana+/F+ cameras. The absence of the usual lens barrel allows a smaller packaging and without the pretty darn heavy Diana book in the package.

Look at the image above. The silver switch on the top left beneath the viewfinder is the switch to open/close the pinhole(s). I love how this design works (for pinhole) compared to the pinhole feature on the normal Diana F+. You do not have to hold the switch down and slot in some little plastic ‘lock’ to keep the pinholes open. Just pull down the switch and the pinholes will start letting light in … and push it up when you are done exposing the photo. Simple ain’t it?

Notice also the switch at the bottom of the camera … that is the pinhole selection switch. You can choose between using 1, 2 or 3 pinholes with this switch. Just remember to reduce the exposure time accordingly if you are using the 2 or 3 pinhole modes … as more light will be hitting your film.

Using the color ‘filters’ is a piece of cake. Just gently turn the silver outer ring on the front of the camera and the front ‘barrel’ will be removed. You will then see behind the front ‘barrel’ … there are some grooves for you to just place the filter securely and then reversing the whole process … place the ‘barrel’ back to its original location and a slight twist will lock it back in place.

Do also remember to add some exposure time when using the color ‘filters’. There is a simple exposure guide at the back of the very simple user manual. Cut it out and keep it in your pocket as a guide … then just add/subtract exposure time accordingly. My maths is one big disaster, so what I did for these test rolls was to roughly throw in some seconds/minutes to the recommended exposure time and pray that everthing is okay.

These photos were taken during my short trip to Malaysia last weekend … and are my first attempts at using this Diana MPO. To be honest … I was really worried. The way I gauged the exposure time was madness. Most of them were taken using a ‘open the pinhole … take a smoke break … drink some coffee and see how it goes’ method. I didn’t get to try using it with the flash because I had left the flash back in Singapore.

I tried all sorts of lighting condition and exposure times ranged from 2 seconds to sometimes 45 minutes. Some were even taken handheld (oh well … those super blurred ones). 😀 A tripod is definitely a great friend to have when using these pinhole cameras but even without one … you can create lots of crazy fuzzy wild fun photos!

So do I like this camera? You bet I do! I was worried it might be another white elephant sitting pretty in my cabinet but after 3 rolls of test shots … I’m sure I’ll be using it very often. Perhaps next round I should try using 35mm film instead.

What you see here are photos from my first test roll (expired Agfa Optima 100). I’ll try to stay away tonight and scan the other two rolls if I don’t fall asleep after shower.