Oktomat Lomo cameras in Dublin

Miguel_Sanchez

A friend of mine is looking to pick up an Oktomat Lomo camera in Dublin. Anyone know if any shops stock them?

Fajitas!

Urban Outfitters and the Gallery of Photography both have them.

DaireQuinlan

Urban Outfitters in Temple Bar is probably your best bet, or alternatively the film shop attached to the IFI, entrance off temple bar square.

Obviously be prepared to pay the big bucks. (grumble grumble grumble lomo grumble grumble :mad:)

DaireQuinlan

Fajitas! wrote: »

Urban Outfitters and the Gallery of Photography both have them.

jeez, don't you have, like, college work to do or something ?!?!?!?

0utpost31

Sorry to hijack the thread but I'll only be two seconds... what's so great about lomo photography? I've googled it but I still don't get it.

Fajitas!

It's bad photography, it has a bit of a charm.

Read my thesis in a few months. :pac:

Edit: It's Hangover Friday, and I was in college for 9:30, I think I'm doing quite well

DaireQuinlan

0utpost31 wrote: »

Sorry to hijack the thread but I'll only be two seconds... what's so great about lomo photography? I've googled it but I still don't get it.

In short ...
Once upon a time there was a crappy russian camera. Some guys, quite liking the look of this camera, decided to get exclusive export rights from the manufacturer (LOMO, in russia). Then they constructed a phenomenally successful marketing campaign around this supposedly unique look, which persuaded people that merely taking pictures with this camera, in as casual a way as possible, was not only art, but was super cool hip art ! This is how they justified charging hundreds of dollars for the camera. Emboldened by their success, they then went on to hoover up other cameras (the holga probably being the most famous example) and transform them in the same magical way. They proceeded to make lots and lots and lots of money.

shrapnel222

the oktomat is not a lomo in any way apart from being marketed and owned by lomography.com.

the lomo lca is a great little camera if you can get it cheaply. i bought mine about 8 years ago pretty cheaply and love it, however i don't like and couldn't care about all the hype surrounding it (inflating prices to ridiculous levels). i recently bought an olympus XA2, which quality wise is even better than the lomo, and i paid 12 euros for it. These little cameras have excellent optics, are incredibly unobtrusive and are great for blending in etc.

DaireQuinlan

shrapnel222 wrote: »

the oktomat is not a lomo in any way apart from being marketed and owned by lomography.com.

the lomo lca is a great little camera if you can get it cheaply. i bought mine about 8 years ago pretty cheaply and love it, however i don't like and couldn't care about all the hype surrounding it (inflating prices to ridiculous levels). i recently bought an olympus XA2, which quality wise is even better than the lomo, and i paid 12 euros for it. These little cameras have excellent optics, are incredibly unobtrusive and are great for blending in etc.

You're contradicting yourself here a little. you "couldn't care about all the hype surrounding it" and yet its a "great little camera" with "excellent optics". No its not ! Its a crappy little camera which takes ****ty quality pictures. If thats the aesthetic you're after then that's all well and good. However the ONLY reason people seem to labour under the misapprehension that the LCA is any good is because of the lomographic society marketing juggernaut.

The olympus XA2 on the other hand, Thats not a bad camera

shrapnel222

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

You're contradicting yourself here a little. you "couldn't care about all the hype surrounding it" and yet its a "great little camera" with "excellent optics". No its not ! Its a crappy little camera which takes ****ty quality pictures. If thats the aesthetic you're after then that's all well and good. However the ONLY reason people seem to labour under the misapprehension that the LCA is any good is because of the lomographic society marketing juggernaut.

The olympus XA2 on the other hand, Thats not a bad camera

i agree it's a crappy little body but it has a quality optics on it which gives you sharp and saturated shots although it has a bit of barrelling ( a lot more than the XA2) but this has become a bit of a trademark when it comes to the LCA.

0utpost31

OK I've come to the conclusion that this lomo malarky is a load of shyte. That's what I thought before but I wasn't sure if I understood it or not.

I've now seen a few examples of lomo images and they are terrible and boring. Ok saturation is 120%.... great. How are these shit pictures charming?

DaireQuinlan

0utpost31 wrote: »

OK I've come to the conclusion that this lomo malarky is a load of shyte. That's what I thought before but I wasn't sure if I understood it or not.

I've now seen a few examples of lomo images and they are terrible and boring. Ok saturation is 120%.... great. How are these shit pictures charming?

*shrug*
Some of them are good, some are bad. Much the same as photography in general. It depends on the photographer, not the camera. I've seen some fantastic work by self-styled 'lomographers'. I've seen some really mediocre done work by people with the latest greatest full frame digitals. Go figure.

0utpost31

Here's a test:

Capture the exact same setting/subject with a lomo-thing and then straight after with a top of the range camera & equipment. The top of the range photo will come out nice, but if somebody saw the lomo they'd probably ask "wtf? did you drop your camera in the toilet or something it looks f**ked!"

How could anyone prefer the oversaturated bad quality soft out of focus crappy lomo pic?

It's just one of those big "movements" that I don't agree with, I have nothing against the photographers. Well, maybe I just wonder about their sanity a small bit.

DaireQuinlan

0utpost31 wrote: »

Here's a test:

Capture the exact same setting/subject with a lomo-thing and then straight after with a top of the range camera & equipment. The top of the range photo will come out nice, but if somebody saw the lomo they'd probably ask "wtf? did you drop your camera in the toilet or something it looks f**ked!"

Oh c'mon, thats childishly simple.
Here: The Eiffel tower.
Taken using a Canon 5D , couple of thousand dollars worth of kit.

Taken using an LCA, 20-50 euros on EBay

Care to try again ?

shrapnel222

0utpost31 wrote: »

Here's a test:

Capture the exact same setting/subject with a lomo-thing and then straight after with a top of the range camera & equipment. The top of the range photo will come out nice, but if somebody saw the lomo they'd probably ask "wtf? did you drop your camera in the toilet or something it looks f**ked!"

How could anyone prefer the oversaturated bad quality soft out of focus crappy lomo pic?

It's just one of those big "movements" that I don't agree with, I have nothing against the photographers. Well, maybe I just wonder about their sanity a small bit.

if you're basing your judgements on my lomo set (no idea if you are or not btw, but just in case) then the shots i have are all done with expired film and cross processed. here's one that isn't



and here's the link to one from someone on flickr whose lomo shots are just fantastic (IMO):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brunovanwassenhove/109388936/in/set-72157607950975118

Fajitas!

Actually, Daire, that's essentially what I'm doing my thesis on, though I can assure you it wouldn't be be appreciated about these parts

Anyways, there's different aesthetics - different strokes for different folks. For now, I'm off to drop my camera down a toilet to see what kind of photos it takes.

shrapnel222

Fajitas! wrote: »

Actually, Daire, that's essentially what I'm doing my thesis on, though I can assure you it wouldn't be be appreciated about these parts

Anyways, there's different aesthetics - different strokes for different folks. For now, I'm off to drop my camera down a toilet to see what kind of photos it takes.

well if your only subject is fecal matter, then they're bound to be ****ty:p

DaireQuinlan

Fajitas! wrote: »

Anyways, there's different aesthetics - different strokes for different folks.

Thats for sure ... Thakfully
Anyhow, isn't this the conclusion that the thread inevitably grinds to a halt on every time the whole lomographic thing comes up.

Fajitas!

Probably, unless you want me to ramble on about the punctum of an image becoming a process, and the faults reflecting the want to explore imperfecting perfection, and so on and so forth - That's not lomography though, that's just looking at alternative approaches to photography that lomography bounced off in it's mass marketing ploy...

ThOnda

Punctum - heh, I read that book as well Reminds me that I should buy some more books for solstice.

Using Lomo-like distorting cameras is like any other kind of photography. Photography (lomography) can produce art, but it is not art itself. So, if you use it for purpose, to achieve something, excellent. If you use it because it is "in" and "trendy" and you want to show the final pictures to people "on the same wave", it is just a gimmick that won't make you neither cool nor artist.

Shiny

The only thing that puts me off getting into this is the film costs.

Hence why I tempted to try this.

Here is a tutorial to simulate the effect in Photoshop. This way
you have more control over the "quality" issues. I think it could
be quite easily saved as an action.

I quite like the effects of the old cameras.

ThOnda

Get some piece of plastic foil, make on it lots of greasy fingerprints, crease and crumple it and stretch it in front of the lens. Or glue it to older filter or filter frame. The rest is just a little of processing

ThenComesDudley

Maybe i have missed the point on these cameras, but i have always liked the surprise of what the result of the photos might be..

Admittedly i mostly end up with complete rubbish or a roll of film with only 1 or 2 printable shots.. lately ive been using a b&w film from 1974, and it has a weird washed faded look to the photos.

I think i just go for the aesthetics of the resulting photos, as someone said above, its not the camera, its the photographer/subject. Sometimes the results can be great, but mostly not.

I do think that there is aload of pointless cameras in the lomo range, like the coloursplash camera, got one and its meh...,

I can understand some people getting annoyed, when they have the latest up to date kit, and then another person pulls out a lomo and claims its better, it really is a different strokes for different folks. I personally think the lomo range are crappy built cameras with mostly crappy shots, but i still like to give em a bash every so often

DaireQuinlan

Shiny wrote: »

Here is a tutorial to simulate the effect in Photoshop. This way
you have more control over the "quality" issues. I think it could
be quite easily saved as an action.

Ah right, thats what was missing from the conversation. There's always someone who suggests you can just do it in photoshop ...

More grist for your mill, Eh, Fajitas ?

Shiny

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Ah right, thats what was missing from the conversation. There's always someone who suggests you can just do it in photoshop ...

More grist for your mill, Eh, Fajitas ?

Am I not allowed to suggest it ?

Not everyone owns one of these cameras.

prox

ThenComesDudley wrote: »

I can understand some people getting annoyed, when they have the latest up to date kit, and then another person pulls out a lomo and claims its better, it really is a different strokes for different folks.

They're both wrong. Comparing cameras is like authors comparing typewriters.

elven

ok, i'll come out of the woodwork for this one.

Yes, mostly it's just a very successful marketing ploy that appeals to the trendies. There are people who will shoot any old mince and because it's wonky, will claim it has artistic merit. I do see that as being equivalent to someone shooting with a high end dslr and L glass and raving about how sharp it is, as if that makes it great photography too.

I think that the thing with distorted = arty comes from the fact that if you see a "well exposed", relatively sharp image of something, it's about as direct a representation of real life as you can get. There isn't a whole lot more to interpret there. When you start to distort and get further from that (accepted) representation of reality, you introduce scope for interpretation and I think that's where art comes in. But it depends hugely on how you actually use the distortion, and not just a case of it being squinty/soft/overexposed/oversatured/cross processed.

I found an excellent compromise which equally appalls toy camera lovers and DSLR gear fetishists - I put a holga lens on my 350D

0utpost31

ThenComesDudley wrote: »

I can understand some people getting annoyed, when they have the latest up to date kit, and then another person pulls out a lomo and claims its better

That doesn't bother me, I don't have the latest up to date kit anyways. Lomo shots are simply shit. They look like TESCO disposable camera shots.

People have gotten caught up in a stupid trend and they want to seem "cool" and into "real" and "proper" photography by getting a piece of crap camera and taking random shots of tables and walls and peoples elbows.

Great. Sounds fantastic.

I'm not pissed off because I think that lomo shots are better than mine. I'm just pissed off because people are wasting their time with this shyte, this "movement". In a few years time this lomo malarky will be long forgotten.

Oh c'mon, thats childishly simple.
Here: The Eiffel tower.
Taken using a Canon 5D , couple of thousand dollars worth of kit.

Taken using an LCA, 20-50 euros on EBay

Care to try again ?

OK great you have one example. I can spout billions.

You are a national geographic photographer sent on a daring mission to the congo rainforest, countless miles in square kilometers, to document the wildlife. Do you bring your pro camera with good quality & fast lenses & weather sealing? Or do you bring a piece of shit lomo camera that you bought in a car boot sale in some wretched god-forsaken village in Offaly of a sunday morning which takes really shit quality photos with high saturation?

Hmmmm.... let me think....

Actually feck national geographic. Say your sister is having a wedding and she wants you to photograph the whole day. Ok, bring your trusty lomo camera and take some soft, over saturated, bad quality photos for the most important day of the young womans life. And subsequently ruin her life. Or get some good photos with a proper camera.

How about this. You're driving home and you spot a car crash on the road. You realize that you're the first on the scene so instantly and with obvious guilt you say "wow what a scoop let me whip out my piece of shit lomo camera to capture this moment and then sell it to newspapers" and you proceed to take a mis-exposed, over-saturated soft crap picture of the scene. Any newspaper interested in this crap photo? Nah.

It's your daughters birthday. She's just turned 10. She's a big girl now... this is a big occasion. Better whip out your piece of shit LOMO camera and take some over-saturated, soft, ugly dull photos of your daughter to record this monentus occasion. The last thing you want is good quality photos! Jesus, to hell with good quality! Bah! Whip out the lomo.... crap quality ftw!!!!

if you're basing your judgements on my lomo set (no idea if you are or not btw, but just in case) then the shots i have are all done with expired film and cross processed. here's one that isn't

That photo hurts my eyes. It even hurts the guy in the photos's eyes: look he's wearing shades to protect himself. Too much white. Whats' your point. It's an extremely boring photo of two bored looking tourists.

The only thing that puts me off getting into this is the film costs.

Are you nuts? Film cost is stopping you persuing a hobby in lomography? How much did your camera & lenses & kit in general cost? Admit it, lomography is a daunting prospect. Taking shit photos. Why would you want shit & soft & hyper-saturated photos?

Maybe i have missed the point on these cameras, but i have always liked the surprise of what the result of the photos might be..

Eh.... that happens with digital too mate. I'm often very surprised with what I've captured when I get home after a walk around with my camera,

Admittedly i mostly end up with complete rubbish or a roll of film with only 1 or 2 printable shots.. lately ive been using a b&w film from 1974, and it has a weird washed faded look to the photos.

Wow, sounds really great!!! I wish I had a lomo camera so I could take completely rubbish photos.

Sometimes the results can be great, but mostly not.

Hmm... maybe you should concentrate on proper photography and leave that soviet stone-age shit behind. Do you still use flint to light your fires? You can buy matches and lighters nowadays. Tis magic I tell ya.

I personally think the lomo range are crappy built cameras with mostly crappy shots, but i still like to give em a bash every so often

Why Why why why why why. Are you trying to be "cool"?

Yes, mostly it's just a very successful marketing ploy that appeals to the trendies.

Yes!! Tis a trend! Gone in a few years, or blown into a stupid worldwide craze. Either way one must admit that it is stupid.











Rant over for now.:pac:

Fajitas!

Oh dear, that is hilarious.


Internet User in 'Hates Lomography' Shocker on Forum.


Look... you don't get it - And it's not a lomo shot, there's a whole field of interests into alternate fields of photography, from making your own lenses, cameras to different types of processing. National Geographic can go take all their perfect photos they want, tbh, I'm more interested in alternate processes.

I wouldn't call myself a 'lomographer' - I'm far from being that 'hip' and rich, but I do have a passion for alternate processes - From pinholes to zone plates, cross processing to paper negs. There are also billions of examples of your 'normal' cameras taking boring photographs, where a 'bad' image has a hell of a lot more character - There's more to the photograph.

At the end of the day, the four examples you have there are only four examples, and tbh, a good photographer will get what he wants out of a situation, with the camera, lenses etc he chooses to equip himself with. If I want to head out on a stroll with my 1960's Soviet rangefinder (No, it's not a LCA) with a beautiful soft lens then I will - I know how to get what I want out of it, and I have done in the past.

I do find it increeeeeedibly amusing that you have such strong opinions for something you don't like, have no interest in, and won't be having an interest in. I have no interest in going out taking photos for Nat Geo - I don't mind having a read of it, but their not my kinda photos. There's a trick to photography though - Keep yourself open - Try not to shut any door.

Shiny

Are you nuts? Film cost is stopping you persuing a hobby in lomography? How much did your camera & lenses & kit in general cost? Admit it, lomography is a daunting prospect. Taking shit photos. Why would you want shit & soft & hyper-saturated photos?

Nope, not nuts. Nor was I intending to begin a hobby with lomography either.
I just wanted to try it out and take a few shots for fun.

My consideration was that I would get a Holga and leave it in my camera bag.
And take the odd shot with it when I was going somewhere with my normal
camera. Then after a while the film would be full and I would have a large
variety of shots from different scenes. I would justify the cost of film in that
case.

The majority of Photography is taken in this forum is for the love of it,
whether that be from a 1940's camera, P&S or SLR.

Its all good relatively.

0utpost31

Oh dear, that is hilarious.

I meant that last post to be kind of funny so I'm glad you found it hilarious hehe. Also, I was drunk when I wrote that, but I still stand by it firmly.

And, I don't "get it"? Ha!

ThOnda

I would go even further. I really like the freshness of the twenties and pictorialsm.

Photography is a creative process. And I don't care if you have developed your prints on home made paper using moose piss. What counts is the result - the picture hanging on the wall, printed in book or maybe even on the screen of my laptop.

DaireQuinlan

ThOnda wrote: »

And I don't care if you have developed your prints on home made paper using moose piss.

On an almost completely unrelated (to the rest of the thread) note, there actually is an instance of film being developed with human urine. it was some patient suffering from some condition that resulted in trace amounts of a particular chemical appearing in his urine. In a crowning irony, the doctor in charge, who was also an avid photography buff, actually developed the mans OWN X-RAYS in the concentrated urine.

ThOnda

I know And pictures of swans developed by water in which they were swimming.

Dodgykeeper

To kinda quote Jimmy Rabbite "Lomo is photographic Wan&ing"

BanzaiBk

I got an Oktomat in UO last week for my little sister's birthday. Have a Diana and a LCA whatev. myself, fun little cameras. I'm not out to impress any photography "types" though, with my use/non-use of a lomo because it is hip/not hip, so my use of the lomos is purely for a laugh:pac:

Fajitas!

Dodgykeeper wrote: »

To kinda quote Jimmy Rabbite "Lomo is photographic Wan&ing"

Lol. The most amusing thing is... you could apply that to anything, sports photography, editorial photography, reportage photography... sports photography...

But do you not have an opinion yourself?

Then again, I like jazz.

Dodgykeeper

Fajitas! wrote: »

Lol. The most amusing thing is... you could apply that to anything, sports photography, editorial photography, reportage photography... sports photography...

But do you not have an opinion yourself?

Then again, I like jazz.

TBH I quite like the lomo stuff I have seen, and quite like the Jazz I have heard dont know enough about either to be critical, just tought the quote may be funny, you do know you mentions sports photography twice