Originally created by the small Hong Kong firm “Great Wall Plastics Factory” in the ’60s, the “Diana” was a cheap, plastic 120 film camera that produced soft, blurry images that added a “dreamy” character. If that sounds a little bit like a Lomo, another equally crappy camera well-loved for its inaccuracies, you won’t be surprised to hear that Lomo LC-A, the company who produces remakes of the Soviet-era LOMO KOMPAKT AUTOMAT camera has also decided to build a new Diana, which they’re calling the “Diana+”.
While modern manufacturing techniques would allow much of the light-leaking issues with the Diana to be fixed, the Diana+ leaves those errors in place to provide a similar experience, as well as new “Pinhole” and “Endless Panorama” modes just to mix it up a bit.
If I sound like I’m dissing the Diana+, I’m not. There’s certainly much to recommend the addition of randomness and novelty when creating, or loving the rough edges of primitive technology—I have an affinity for chip music partially because it sounds nothing like the analog noises it was trying to synthesize—but I’m a digital man. No amount of romance is going to get me to develop film, scan it, and upload it. Now if someone would created a cheap Diana+ digital model or maybe a Diana Photoshop filter I’d be set. I have to admit, though, the pictures on the Diana site do make my heart hurt a little bit, like I’m looking at the heirlooms of people long gone.
Oh, sorry, I’m getting windy: the Diana+ is fifty bucks.
Product Page [Lomography.com via Gadget Lab]]
There is a hack for getting this style of lens on a digital SLR. In this case, it is a Holga, but the effect is similar to the Diana/Lomo, but without the scanning.
DIY: Canon EF – Holga Lens
I used the original Diana. Loved it. I was hoping the Diana+ would be digital. -g Nothing like seeing those light leaks immediately!
$50?? The original was under $10 (more like $3 if memory serves me).
Joel-
Why on earth would you want to scan and upload your negatives?
wouldn’t the ‘Diana photoshop filter’ be one that takes the subject of your photo and makes it look like it smashed into a concrete pole at high speed?
well, it would if i designed it…
@ Commenter # 2: That’s right…most people just leave their files on their digital memory cards and forever erase them when it gets full. Why would you want to upload digital images to a computer as well? That’s just good ole’ fashioned grandma got into the “special” medicine cabinet nonsense. Heaven forbid those who actually make prints from their digital files…it is meant to be viewed on a tiny LCD screen. Get with the times, it’s not 19-dickety-2…we had to say “dickety” because the kaiser had stolen our number twenty.