膠片攝影 相機評測：lomomatic 110 膠片相機

Hello, and welcome to Analog Insights. In today's episode, Jules and I review the Lomomatic 110, a brand new premium Lomography pocket film camera for the 110 film format. The camera comes in two different versions, a more colorful plastic version, and this rather elegant version that we have here that is made of metal, silver anodized aluminum to be precise. The camera is directed at prosumers and amateurs curious about this very special film format. And in terms of portability, these 110 pocket cameras are really hard to beat, and they are ideal for capturing day-to-day moments and kind of situations around family and friends, capturing your kids and so on, because they are so small, and yet you are capturing these moments on film. The 110 film format was originally introduced by Kodak in 1972, and each frame is 13 by 17 millimeters, and comes with one registration hole to transport the film, and this film comes in cartridges. So in contrast to what we are usually used to with 35 millimeter film, you don't get a roll that is basically taking out the film and then rolling it back into the cartridge, but in this case you have two different sides on the cartridge and 24 frames on it, and then all you do is expose it, and at the very end you don't have to rewind it, but you can just take it as it is and send it to a lab. And given the size of the negative, of course there are a little bit of limitations to the kind of quality that you can get out of it, and yet if you have a really good lens on your camera, and you have a good setup in terms of your scanner, you can get pretty good results, and there are all sorts of labs out there producing great results for this format. Lomography brought the format back in 2012, and since then have expanded the range of films they are offering, and they offer black and white film and all sorts of color negative films, and they are the only ones doing that at the moment, so from a strategic perspective it makes a lot of sense to introduce a premium 110 film camera that actually comes with a wonderful glass lens that is multi-coated, that comes with a built-in flash and all these features that we will get to in a minute, and kind of promote the format. For this channel, this is the very first foray into the 110 film format, and of course I reached out to some experts, and one of them is called Tiny Frame Tales on Instagram, and I can highly recommend taking a look at his channel. He's producing some fantastic results with all sorts of 110 film cameras, and really shows what the format is capable of in general, and he was kind enough to answer all sorts of initial questions that I had around the format, and about some tips and tricks that might be useful in reviewing the first 110 format camera on this channel. Jude and I took the camera out here in Munich, around the Olympic Park at first, shooting some black and white Orca film, and then later on transitioned to some Tiger Lomography C41 film that we shot around kind of a theater, craft and artist area around Leonrodplatz here in Munich. So let's dive in there and take a closer look at the camera, its features and the results it produces. So what about the features and the build quality? The aluminum version which we have here feels really premium and nice to the touch. I cannot assess the plastic version yet, but both versions come with the very same 23mm Minitar CX lens that is made out of glass, and multi-coated, so this is not a plastic toy, but really a proper tool that tries to bring out the most of the 110 film format. The Lomomatic 110 comes with an automatic exposure mode, which makes it of course quite convenient in its handling, and it has two different modes, a day mode that is typically meant for brighter situations and sunny daylight situations, and here it automatically shoots at f5.6, and a night mode that always shoots at f2.8, and is then of course particularly suitable for shooting indoors or in darker situations. You can always use the attachable flash, you can use the camera without it, but you can also attach it, and then select the fitting flash mode for your situation, and what is nice in typical Lomography fashion, it comes with a couple of colored flash filters, I didn't get a chance to try this yet, but there were some sample images here provided by Lomography, and you can get an idea of how it would perform. After loading a film cartridge, you would select the ISO setting here, and you can select between 100,200 and 400, plus above mode, if you want to use the camera for longer exposures, on a tripod for instance, that is also possible, but typically you would put in your film cartridge, and then select the fitting ISO setting, and the automatic exposure would work, and select the fitting shutter speed, taking the two aperture blades that it consists of, and these aperture blades would both select the right aperture, but also then the right shutter speed. There is also a multiple exposure mode, which can be activated via this MX lever here, which is also nice, and kind of fits the whole Lomography vibe. Most importantly, you have a zone focusing mechanism, with four different distances, in typical Lomography fashion, from infinity to 3 meters, to 1.5 meters, to 0.8 meters, and of course, to get optimal results, you would choose the most fitting distance to your subject, and of course, since it's a 23mm lens, and a pretty small film format, with a maximum aperture of 2.8, you would typically get, not a particularly shallow depth of field, but really to get the most sharpness out of it, you should guess the right distance to your subject, and then in our case, this worked really good, and we got some great results with it. The Lomomatic 110 is powered by a CR2 battery, that just about fits the size of the camera, and conveniently, this also powers the attached flash, so there's no need for an additional battery for the flash unit. I have a pre-release version here, that is still the final production version, but it didn't come with all the packaging, and some of the accessories. The final version comes with a hand strap, that I think is really nice, and even a little film reel box, to store your negatives, once they have been developed. So overall,a really, really nice package. So what about the image quality and the results? Given the small format, the results turned out surprisingly sharp and clear. And of course, there are some limitations when it comes to this format, but I was positively surprised. You do get images that are sharp across the entire frame, so to speak, and here we have to differentiate, because the lenses typically capture a larger area than your actual frame, and this is why you see many people shooting this 110 format, posting these characteristic scans, where you also see a little bit of typography of the film, plus that registration hole in there, and you can see that it's always exposing beyond the actual frame, that some labs would scan. And the only downside here is that, if you scan the entire frame, that it's a little bit difficult to get a good white spot and black spot for your scan, and then you would have color shifts resolved as a result in your final frames. We of course wanted to aim for a good color representation and also see how the lens performs here, and yeah, it really represents the respective color of the film stock, so really good solid color reproduction, and in terms of black and white, the Orca film also performed nicely, so you do get a pretty nice curve, strong contrast nevertheless, but really nice and interesting results, so the film stock definitely delivers, and you can shoot some interesting results here. What I found interesting is that, since you have these cartridges that you just take out at the end and send to the lab, this is really convenient and nice, and I found myself realizing that it's a pretty interesting entry point also for prosumers or enthusiasts like we are here on the channel, that just want to try this 110 format, you can simply get one of those cameras, put in the cartridge, and you're good to go, and this also means that you can even have a kid shoot this particular plastic version, for instance of the camera, and you don't have to worry so much about them learning how to rewind the film, or accidentally opening it in mid-roll or something, it's not that bad in terms of the damage that can be caused, and speaking of opening mid-roll, it's actually possible to switch cartridges in between, and this is a major advantage of the 110 film format, that you could say, OK,I have a nice motif here in front of me, and I want to have it in both black and white and in color, then theoretically you would only use one frame, you could just decide to, OK,I advance, take out the cartridge, put in another one, new one, and then it would only be that one frame that you lost on the other one, if you shoot the entire cartridge then, if you would decide, OK,in between the next one, you would also want to switch, then of course you'd use two, but this is a really nice feature, especially in comparison to 35mm film, where you would typically have to rewind the entire roll, make sure that you ideally not rewind it too much, so that you can still put it in there afterwards, and here the cartridges are super convenient, and are actually fun to use, I find myself really enjoying this format, and yeah, especially for kids, I think it can be a very nice first camera, that they could be using, without that you have to worry so much about it, and in general, it's a kind of always on, always with you camera, that you would use for capturing candid moments around family and friends, and I really, really enjoyed using it, and seeing the kinds of results that we could get in our photo walk here, which was more or less a two series test, I would say, for this kind of camera, and nevertheless, it delivered in this context, and it really indicates, oh,this might work nicely, so yeah, shooting subjects at closer distances, of course, these would resolve nicely, and get better results, shooting landscapes, and wider shots, with a lot of detail on it, of course, here, the limitations of the format become apparent, but other than that, it's really, really cool. So what about the handling and our personal impressions? The Lomomatic 110 feels very intuitive, and was easy to understand quickly, it was easy to understand how to put the film in, and all the controls are where you kind of would expect them, in terms of the ISO settings, the shutter release button, and then the day and night switch on the bottom, plus even the multi-exposure lever, it's all easy and straightforward to understand. The only thing that took us a little bit more time was actually to understand that you need to press the shutter release button properly, because it triggers two sounds, and the first smaller sound, so to speak, is the actual shutter release, and then the slightly louder sound is that it activates the film advance mechanism, so that you, once you close the camera, it actually advances the film to the next frame, which you can then see here on the continuous backing paper of the film stock, and it would transition from one to two or wherever you are, and what I also liked is that once you've shot your 24 frames, it advances a few more times, so the camera realizes that you are at the end of your cartridge, and then it tells you once you're completely done that you can just simply take it out, and you're good to go and send it to a lab or develop it yourself, and at least to me, this whole small system felt finely tuned, and I found myself taking off in another second or third shot of a scene, and without feeling that I'm wasting film, just because it was so much fun in terms of using it. The camera is well built, and especially the silver version felt really nice to us. We are both very curious about the plastic version, and especially Jules visually preferred the other version in terms of its colors and the overall packaging and so on. Personally, I like the silver version and the silver edition better. It kind of fits my vibe, and it also has more of a premium feel, which I liked, but I found it interesting that the two of us were kind of drawn in different directions here, and what I also feel like is that this is a proper tool precisely because of its size, but I think it's worth mentioning that looking at 110 pocket cameras, it's rather on the larger side, so especially if you go vintage and look at 1970s and 80s cameras, you could potentially get smaller cameras that are a bit more built around the size of the cartridges, and not so much around the battery, and so on. And yet, I personally like the size of this particular one, because it really makes it feel like a proper tool. You have something in your hand, the whole process of advancing the film, opening and closing the camera, and so on, feels nicer, and I also feel like I know where to put my hands, if you know what I mean, because sometimes if the cameras become smaller, you are always in the danger of having one of your fingers kind of in front of the lens, and I didn't feel like that in this particular case. And comparing the vintage versions to the newer ones here, I would argue that especially the lens made of multi-coated glass, the built-in flash unit, the multi-exposure feature, and also the auto-exposure feature that is built in, are the main arguments for going for a modern one, and last but not least, of course, you get a brand new camera coming out of a modern production line, and you don't have to hunt for a vintage camera, where potentially you might not get the best results, depending on how it was stored, or used in the past, or also depending on how the built-in features are still working in terms of the shutter, how reliable it is, and so on. So there are a lot of disadvantages, especially when it comes to 110 cameras, if you're hunting for them. Of course, they have a different vibe, but I think Lomography managed to bring in, with the two different versions, a pretty good variety that you can choose from, and you definitely get a reliable modern camera that makes it as easy as possible to tip your toes into this new format. And personally, for me, it is always tremendous fun to try a new film format. It was the same trying for the first time medium format back then. It was the same trying half frame for the first time, and now for me, it was fantastic to tap into this 110 film format and have a reliable camera that produces great results and not a compromise where I always would feel like, oh, how would it be with a different camera? Here, I just feel like, OK, this is really fine-tuned to each other, and I really, really enjoyed shooting it. And at least in my eyes, this is a camera that offers great value for the money and also the film stock that Lomography is offering is really nice and caters to the needs of most people. Of course, it would be fantastic if other major manufacturers would also start producing for the format again, but for now, we have a pretty good variety and choice coming from Lomography. So, thank you very much for watching. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Analog Insights and our review of the Lomomatic 110, a pretty intuitive and classy pocket film camera that lets you shoot the 110 format in style. If I managed to spark your curiosity, it's worth mentioning that Lomography put together a dedicated landing page for the 110 format, so if you're just starting out with it, want to get a better understanding of it, and also want to learn more about, for instance, labs that would develop the 110 film format in your area, then this is a great starting point that tremendously helped me and also just helped reaching out to people that I found on Instagram who have been shooting the format for a longer period already, so a shout out again to Tiny Frame Tales. Thanks for helping me in the beginning. It really, really helped. So if you enjoyed this episode, please remember to like it and maybe even share it with your friends. And if you want to see more videos like this, please subscribe to our channel. Jules, Greg and I really appreciate each and every subscriber coming our way. So thanks for watching. I hope to see you soon. Bye.