Love film, and love the artistic look that lower-spec cameras and film can turn out? Sure, it’s not as high-res as modern digital cameras or even most film cameras. That’s kind of the point with an inexpensive, retro camera selling for just a tick over $100.
little shots
Only the Lomography brand continues to manufacture 110 film. Kodak, Fujifilm, and the others gave up making it. It was devised as a film specifically for ultra-portable cameras. Compared to 210 medium format film and 35mm film, it’s smaller (duh), grainier, and lower resolution.
That’s the point sometimes with shooting film, especially in an inexpensive Lomography camera. You can add or remove the flash to the Lomomatic 110 if you purchase one that includes it. Most versions of the camera include it; only the Golden Gate offers a version without it for $20 less.
You can always remove it via the thumbwheel that turns the solitary mounting screw that mounts it to the camera body. It’s quick and easy to take off and put on, once you know what the thumbwheel does. It took me a minute.
Flash or not, it’s an electronic camera, and so you have to feed it one CR2 battery in order for it to operate. There’s no rechargeable option here, which is refreshing. I’ve got enough things that need constant recharging, as it is.
Controls on the camera are fairly solid. Not Chevy truck levels of robust, but the buttons and switches feel more solid than I’d think a $100 camera would have. To start taking photos, you slide the camera open. The mechanism feels particularly satisfying; so much so that I found myself opening and closing it again and again just for the tactile satisfaction.
When it’s closed, a metal shutter closes over the lens to protect it from scratches and smudges. Although the body slides over to block the viewfinder, it happens within the camera body, and so it doesn’t protect the viewfinder from scratches in the same way.
Standard Lomomatic 110s come with a plastic case, but you can buy one with a metal body for an additional $40 if you have a hankering for a heavier, more substantial camera. It adds weight to what’s supposed to be an ultra-portable camera, sure.
But then, you’re not carrying a camera to save space and weight, are you? If you weren’t willing to sweat a few extra ounces in the first place, you’d just be snapping photos on the smartphone you’re already (probably) carrying.
There’s the Bellagio Edition, which I tested out. It’s pricier than the other Lomomatic 110s at $190, but it looks particularly swanky with its brass case that alternates gloss black paint and polished brass, plus its brass wrist strap. In person, it’s a head-turner.
“Lomomatic” is written across the front in a classier script, compared to the also-but-differently retro block text of the other Lomomatic 110s. All of them are lookers, in their own ways.
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