There are times when you want a camera that is a serious tool to take properly exposed, beautiful negative frames. However all of the technical activity to get a properly exposed, nicely developed negative makes the whole process really slow. If you are having a trip with a friend to London, for example, as I did recently, you cannot make your friend ( a non photographer) slow down and stop, while messing around with meters, f stops, apertures and shutter speeds, not to mention intentional composition. No, you want to point and shoot and crack on with enjoying the company of a friend.
Bit shonky due to an expired roll of film that was (accidentally) exposed both sides.
Luckily the trajectory of camera and photographic refinement made much of the technical work automatic, allowing even non photographers to take some nice photographs. Non photographers don't buy SLRs or Medium Format cameras, they buy a little automatic compact camera. In the early 1980s there were loads on the market and the improvements in automation carried on until the 1990s.
Japan produced some lovely compacts such as the Olympus trip or the Nikon L35AF.
Here is a trip down memory lane. In 1991 I bought a Canon Telemax Sure Shot 35mm film camera as a tool for making family memories. The camera we (read my wife) already had was appalling. While I can immerse myself in technical detail and the finer points of photography, my wife wasn't interested. She wanted to make snaps of the kids, our days out and our holidays. We'd send our film off to Truprint for processing and get back negatives, 6x4 prints and a free Truprint film. The Canon was perfect. An automatic camera with film auto wind, really sharp lens and perfect metering. The Telemax also had a two position zoom, 38mm or 70mm. The DX encoded films allowed the cameras internal brain to configure the ISO of the film in the camera and use that to calculate the exposure and meter the subject. Finally the camera used a near infrared beam to assist with the focusing of the lens.
It was a great camera and served us well. Interestingly the resulting photographs and negatives are still in the photo albums.
The files from the digital cameras that replaced the Sure Shot in the early 2000s have all been lost. Not one of them still exists, even though they were backed up. The backups I still have but the format cannot be read. (why do I hang on to them?).
It is a matter of regret that the camera was not looked after and was consigned to a drawer. Even after I returned to film photography, I ignored the camera. And then it got lost in a house move.
Looking online today nice examples fetch £100 (but I'm digressing. again!).
The point being that a decent compact film camera will serve the user well and allow nice photographs to be taken without slowing down any social interactions/walks/trips/holidays etc.
It was with this in mind that I took my Lomo LC-A to London.
I won't repeat the information that you can look up on the internet.
Here is a link to save you using Google,
The LC-A is a compact camera that produces decent results. Not top flight, portfolio ready photographs, but decent pictures. It's automatic and is very quick to use.
The LC-A is becoming a favorite as a walk around camera. I took this with my LC-A at a location local to my home in Somerset.
I'd recommend an LC-A to anyone looking for a dependable, compact automatic camera. The controls fall easy to hand, it's zone focused, which I'm happy with, and the meter is really accurate. It would make a nice travel camera.
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