Why I Love my Fisheye Camera
The Lomography Fisheye 2 will make you love silly photography.
As soon as I take the camera out of my bag, everyone reacts with immediate curiosity: What is that? Why is the lens so weird? What’s that thing on top?
“It’s a fisheye camera, it shoots on film. Here, look through the viewfinder”:
While the viewfinder is very, very plastic, you immediately get a sense of what makes this camera unique. Every single thing in front of the camera is wrapped up into the center of the frame. If you want a picture with your whole face filling the frame, the lens is going to be touching the tip of your nose.
The model that I have is the Lomography Fisheye 2. If you have an interest in photography, the term “Lomography” may be familiar to you, it’s the name given to the use of cheap “toy” film cameras, namely the iconic Holga, favouring unpredictability and charm over the clean digital images we are so used to today. I had personally never used a film camera before but I have always enjoyed the aesthetic film gives, so when my friends all pitched in to get me this camera for my birthday I was really excited.
I loaded it up with 400 iso film, the “everyday” speed film mainly for use in sunlight. I was surprised that even with a fixed aperture (f/8) and shutter speed (1/100) that all my outdoor shots turned out perfectly exposed. The indoor shots, however, were a different story, I quickly learned that without the flash it is often too dark to use it indoors. Contrary to the catastrophic result of overexposing digital, film can be overexposed by almost 4 stops and be fine, underexpose however and it’s a lost cause. The flash is easy to use, it is powered by a single AA battery, lasts for ages and makes a delightful squeal as it charges up. Just remember to turn it off when you aren’t using it.
I take this camera everywhere, it’s pretty small and light, it doesn’t matter if the lens gets a bit scratched and the body is really sturdy. If it does break it’s only $80 for a new one. I’d rather not have to replace it, but I would in a heartbeat. One of the best features of the camera is that it works as the perfect ice breaker, I found it’s really easy to get a selfie with anyone if your camera is as interesting and quirky as this. On top of this the selfies that it gives are really unique, and holding it at arms length can get as many people in the shot as you like. It really is the epitome of hipster selfie cameras.
Another cool feature is the multiple exposure (MX) switch. Located on the back of the camera its acts as an alternative to the film advance wheel, where you can instead expose a shot twice (or as many times as you like). Below is a double exposure I took in Busselton, it is not only a 360° panorama but also a selfie, good luck doing that with a ‘normal’ camera! There are much cooler effects you can achieve with this though I am yet to try them out, so go and check out some examples on Google.
My favourite accessory for this camera is the Fisheye Submarine. This is a case for the camera that allows you to take it 20m underwater. This plus the camera will cost just over $150, so even including film, it is one of the cheapest underwater cameras you can get. I brought mine under Busselton Jetty and one of my pictures won a travel writing competition with the West Australian newspaper, just because it’s fun doesn’t mean it can’t be a serious camera.
To me, this camera is about capturing the moment. It’s easy to romanticise the concept of light hitting an emulsion, the energy of the particles causing a tangible change in the film to make an image. While I love digital and use it for most of my photography, it simply doesn’t have the same honest beauty that film is able to capture, that quality that transcends the image. Looking through the prints of these fisheye pictures feels like looking out a porthole into a precious frozen moment in time. That is what made me fall in love.
Leederville Cameras is my place of choice for developing film in Perth, they are cheap and usually manage to get it back to you on the same day. I always get them scanned straight to CD, but for a couple of bucks more you can get prints. Fitzgerald Photos are also awesome, another one of my mates uses Friendlies Chemist in Subiaco.
Film is available at Coles, many chemists and a most camera shops.
My most recent project with this camera was photographing the National Youth Science Forum.
