The Lomography LomoKino ($79 direct) is a bit of a strange beast. It is a hand-crank silent movie camera that captures a sequence of images on standard 35mm roll film. Billed as a "Gloriously Analogue Movie Maker," the camera is as low-fi as it gets. A flip-up optical finder gives you a rough idea of framing, and the camera's frame rate varies based on how fast you crank it. The camera's analog workflow is the antithesis of the instant gratification delivered by digital video, but artists and nostalgia buffs who are willing to work to hone their craft could get a lot out of the LomoKino.
Design and Features
The LomoKino is delightfully simple in its design. Its lens has three aperture settings?f/5.6, f/8, and f/11?and the rate at which images are captured varies based on how quickly you crank the camera's handle. Its shutter speed is set at 1/100 of a second, so your choice of 35mm film will largely depend on the light in which you are shooting. The camera does have a hot shoe, so you can use an on-camera flash?you'll just have to make sure you don't crank faster than the flash can recharge.?
Each frame only occupies a quarter of the real estate of a standard film frame, netting approximately 144 exposures on a single roll of film. A pop-up viewfinder gives you a rough idea of what will be captured in each frame, although it is by no means exact, and there is a button next to the lens that moves it out a bit for close-focusing work.
As the camera shoots 35mm film, getting it developed and digitized for sharing can be a hurdle. Most drugstores and many department stores still process color negative film, and costs can be quite reasonable if you don't buy prints?in some cases as little as a dollar per roll. I was unable to get scans from a department-store lab due to the odd frame size, which left me to scan the film at home. Lomography offers instructions on scanning on its website, but scanning each frame individually can be extremely time consuming. I used a dedicated 35mm film scanner, which prevented me from batch scanning as the VueScan software I used limited me to six standard frames per roll. Using a flatbed may help to speed things up, as VueScan does let you enter manual frame sizes when working with a flatbed. Lomo recommends scanning the entire strip and saving each frame individually later on, which can also take a bit of time.
I took a roll of black and white film to a pro lab, and had better results when I inquired about scanning. The lab was able to develop and provide a CD, but the cost was a bit high?$20, a quarter of the cost of the LomoKino itself. There were still four frames to each JPG file, which requires you to do some manual copying and pasting to break them into individual frames. If you live near a Lomography Gallery store that offers developing services you can take the LomoKino film there. For about $20 you can get your film developed and scanned?with a separate file for each individual frame.?If you're willing to put the time in to scanning yourself, or have a local lab with reasonable rates, using the LomoKino can be economical?but processing and scanning costs need to be taken into consideration when using the camera.
If you shoot slide film you can view your movies without the need to scan. The LomoKinoScope is available only as a bundled item with the LomoKino?the two are sold for $99 together, a $20 premium on the LomoKino by itself. You can load developed film into the device and hold it up to your eye to view each frame, turning a crank to advance it. As you'll need to use color slide film, which produces a positive film strip rather than a more traditional negative, you'll be limited to getting film developed in a professional lab in order to use the LomoKinoScope.
The camera ships with some very fun printed documentation. Instructions for use are part of a flip-book. They're a bit hard to read, as the book itself is pretty small, but you'll really only need them to learn how to load the camera. The more impressive tome one titled Inventing the LomoKino. The full-color, 160-page book is full of pictures and is written as the diary of the inventor of the device. It's a fun way to give you some background and inspiration for its use, and unlike bland instruction manuals, it's a book that is worth an hour of your time to thumb through.
Results and Conclusions
After shooting a few rolls with the LomoKino, I quickly recognized that I was doing some things wrong. First of all, I have a tendency to crank the camera pretty fast, which results in movies that are a bit on the short side. I used iMovie to put the videos together, based on Lomography's instructions, although I did use 0.2 second per frame rather than 0.1 second that Lomo recommends. This gave the videos a more of a flip-book feel to me, and extended the playback length a bit?without sacrificing the sense of motion. There are also instructions for making videos with Windows Movie Maker, which has a minimum frame length of a quarter second.
If objective video quality is a concern, stay away from LomoKino. If you're looking for jumpy, scratchy, unsharp frames?think the credit sequence from The Wonder Years, minus Joe Cocker and some resolution?then by all means, the LomoKino will give you what you want. Images are only somewhat sharp in the center of the frame and have a soft, dreamy feel towards the edgtes. The lens is prone to flare when you point it towards the sun or another bright light source?something you can use to your benefit if that is the effect you are going for.?While it's possible to take footage from a digital camcorder or a series of stills from a digital camera and apply filters to get a similar effect, the rough working style of the LomoKino has a unique charm.
The amount of time that you'll need to devote to the scanning workflow can be daunting, although it may be possible to reduce that time if you use a flatbed scanner. Professional scanning is an option, but those costs can add up quickly. If you're willing to put the time in, the LomoKino could prove to be a valuable creative tool. Sure, you can save some time and money and mimic some of its effects via digital trickery. But if a low-fi camcorder that shoots jumpy, silent movies on 35mm roll film sounds like a fun creative tool, digital filters aren't likely to sate your analog desires. For those with patience, time, and the budget to shoot and process film, the LomoKino is worth a close look.
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