What is LOMO?

Category: Culture/Art >> Calligraphy and Painting Art

Analysis:

Not some information about Soviet spy planes written in the 1950s. Lomo is actually a product of the 1980s. The Soviet Union imitated Japanese cameras and never acted as a spy plane.

Lomo is the abbreviation of Leningrad Optical Instrument Factory, which is famous for a camera named Lomo LC-A. Now many LOFI devices are called Lomo devices.

The following is what I wrote to the magazine before. I hope it helps.

High-tech digital cameras bring fast and casual photography, but at the same time, another group of young people are fascinated by the effect of low-tech cameras, all of which originated from Lomo LC-A.

LOMO, whose full name is Leningrad Optical Instrument Factory, is the largest optical instrument manufacturer in Russia today. Today, LOMO has become synonymous with LOMO LC-A, which is a 35 mm auto-exposure paraxial camera developed and produced by this factory in the former Soviet Union. It was originally designed to imitate Leica's Minox and was used to equip spies in the former Soviet Union. Discontinued in the late 1980s. 199 1 Two students from Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in Austria bought LOMO LC-A in an antique shop in Prague, Czech Republic. An exhibition after returning to China made LOMO LC-A famous. The two students pasted photos taken with LOMO LC-A all over the wall-this became the main way for LOMO fans to communicate later. The dark corners and rich colors in LOMO's works have attracted the attention of many young people. 1996, these two students went to St. Petersburg, Russia to find the production factory of LOMO, and persuaded the person in charge of the factory to resume production of Lomo LC-A, which was immediately snapped up by young people all over the world after it resumed production. Thus, the new word "Lomography" was born. In Hong Kong, there is also an exhibition of lomography-8,000 photos taken with LOMO are arranged into a 42-meter-long "Lomo wall" in the subway station, forming a unique landscape. Due to the shortage of supply, the price of a LOMO LC-A on the LOMO website rose from the initial $30 to nearly $200.

I bought the LOMO LC-A from the auction website. According to the serial number in the cabin, it is estimated that it was produced in 1986. The size of the machine is 107mm×68mm×43.5mm, and the wide-angle lens of 32 mm is adopted, with obvious distortion. The focal length needs to be adjusted manually, and the focal length lever next to the lens can be adjusted in three steps: 0.8, 3 meters and infinity. 3 meters away from infinity, suitable for blind shot and snapshots. Many big heads in Lomography's website are shot with a focal length of 0.8 meters. There will be a dark corner at the edge of the photo taken by Lomo LC-A. Because the lens shrinks deeply in front of the camera when the focusing lever is at infinity, the dark corner is particularly obvious when the focusing lever is at infinity and the aperture is large. Therefore, according to this feature, we can reduce or increase the dark angle effect by narrowing the aperture (we need to calculate the exposure ourselves) or using a large aperture. The developed photos taken by this machine are saturated in color. Excellent imaging, edge imaging is slightly inferior to central imaging. It is the dark corners and saturated colors that attract many young buyers.

LOMO LC-A needs three AG 13 button cell for photometric determination. You can hear the shutter sound when there is no battery, but the shutter doesn't actually open. Therefore, it is best to have a spare battery ready at any time in case the battery is exhausted and it is impossible to shoot. The maximum aperture of this machine is 2.8, which can be adjusted from f2.8 to f 16. A is program automatic exposure, and the camera automatically sets the aperture value and shutter speed according to the brightness at that time, so the metering is more accurate. When shooting in the dark, be sure to wait for the shutter to close and make a sound before releasing your hand to avoid underexposure caused by closing the shutter before the end of exposure. When the aperture is set to a value other than a, the program will lock the shutter speed to 1/60 seconds. The longest automatic exposure time of LOMO LC-A program is 2 seconds, and the shortest is 1/500 seconds. The change of 17 Ev value (F2.82s'-f161/500) can be achieved, and shutter speed adjustment and exposure compensation are not needed, but exposure compensation can be achieved by setting ISO. The sensitivity setting from iso25 to iso400 can be done on the fuselage.

There is a flash interface at the top of Lomo LC-A. After connecting the flash, the shutter speed will remain at 1/60 seconds. The viewfinder and lens are generally hidden in the eyelid protective case of the machine, which is not easy to get dirty. There are two red lights in the viewfinder. In the case of program automatic exposure (file A), turn on the left light alone, and the shutter speed is higher than1/60s; When the two lights are on at the same time, it means that the shutter speed is low, 1/30, and it is necessary to stabilize the camera or use a tripod when shooting; The light turns on and then goes out slowly, indicating that the battery is insufficient and needs to be replaced in time; When both lights go out, check whether there is electricity or whether the battery is installed backwards.

LOMO LC-A is not common in the domestic market because of its low output. In earlier years, the domestic market price of LOMO LC-A was about 300 yuan. Now the price of LOMO LC-A on Lomographyasia website is 1400 Hong Kong dollars. At present, the photographic equipment market in Beijing or Northeast China is occasionally expensive, and the price is usually much higher than the actual value of the machine. In addition, 4 continuous shooting, 6 continuous shooting cameras and stereo cameras are also called LOMO cameras by LOMO Grapher and have nothing to do with LOMO factory. Today, the word LOMO is not only the abbreviation of Leningrad Optical Instrument Factory, but also represents youth and creativity.