Community Review: Shooting with the Lomo LC-A 120

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I’ll admit it, my cameras weren’t getting much use lately. I had been taking photos of the same things and it had gotten stale. I needed a new challenge and my wife needed birthday gift ideas. Now I’ve shot medium format before with my Lubitel 166U and enjoyed it. The Lubitel is a fully manual camera and is fun in its own right.

Sometimes though, you don’t want to have to think any more than you have to. By setting the exposure for you, the LC-A lets you focus on the composition, which really is the most important thing when it comes to making a creative and pleasing picture. The great thing about square medium format is if you center your subject in the frame, generally speaking, your photo is fairly symmetrical and pleasing to the eye.

Credits: ces1um

The lens on the Lomo LC-A 120 is a 38mm f/4.5 Minigon Lens, which is equivalent to a 21mm lens on 35mm camera. While it’s not the fastest lens, it is sharp. Having had to scale my photo down for “web use” doesn’t do the Minigon lens justice, but trust me, the full resolution photo is so sharp it could cut you.

Credits: ces1um

Lomography states that the lens provides pleasing vignetting and I would have to agree. I’m not so sure why people say that vignetting is a flaw in the lens or camera design. The fact that many photo editing programs and photo sharing websites provide filters to put vignetting back into a photo should show how desirable this feature can be.

Credits: ces1um

The LC-A 120, like the LC-A+, is a zone focused camera. I own and love the LC-A+ but I have to admit that its younger, larger brother is easier to focus as the distances just make more sense. The LC-A 120 has distance markings for 0.6, 1, 2.5 and infinity to set the focus. Basically, if you can physically touch the object with your arm outstretched, it’s 0.6m away. If it’s just out of reach and no amount of stretching will let your hand touch it then it’s 1 meter. 2.5 meters is a little tricky but what I like to do is pretend I’m lying down. If it’s about one and a half of me away, then it’s safe to use the 2.5m setting. Infinity, well that’s basically for landscapes. See, easy!

Credits: ces1um

So the Lomo LC-A 120 is officially my new favorite camera. There’s something about this one. It’s a little bit quirky, and you can bet it’s going to draw attention from people. Hope you like being social.

Credits: ces1um

written by ces1um on 2017-06-05 #gear #medium-format #lomo-lc-a-120

Mentioned Product

Lomo LC-A 120

Lomo LC-A 120

The Phoblographer Editor's Choice Award Winner "The best street photography camera: film or digital. Pretty much nothing will beat this."

3 Comments

  1. icequeenubia
    icequeenubia ·

    Thank you for the review, @ces1um!

  2. fbeudaert
    fbeudaert ·

    It's a great camera for shooting slides <3
    Thanks for your article

  3. mwissa
    mwissa ·

    I love the LC-A 120 concept and your review (nice photos by the way) but I need to understand the best practice of the zone focusing on this camera .. for example, if I picked 2.5m that means everything from 2.5 to infinity should be in focus? Or any subject close to 2.5m (+/-) will be in focus? Thanks!

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