Shit-ass Lomographic Society launches overpriced Diana Mini camera I might actually buy

The Lomographic Society launched a new camera today that actually looks cool: Diana Mini. Cool enough that I might actually buy it, even though it’s definitely over-priced, and if it’s like the rest of their products, a complete piece of shit.

What makes it cool is that it shoots square format pictures on 35mm film. This is awesome. I love square format, don’t like the 3:2 aspect ratio of normal 35mm, but like the film’s cheap and convenient processing. Unfortunately, square format 35mm cameras are rare and often expensive. This is too expensive for what it is, but less than most of the other options.

Here’s the rundown:

  • Film Type: 35mm film
  • Lens: 24mm (Square Format: 30mm equivalent, Half Frame format: 35mm equivalent)
  • Diagonal View Angles: 70° 62°
  • Focusing: 0.6m-inf.
  • Frame Format: 24mm × 24mm & 24mm × 17mm (select on body)
  • Shutter Speed: 1/60, Bulb (N, B)
  • Aperture: f8, f11 (cloudy, sunny)
  • Flash Attachment: via Diana Flash Plug (flash not included)
  • View Finder: built in
  • Film Counter Type: frame accumulate type
  • Multi- exposure: yes
  • Film stopping: yes
  • Cable Release: yes
  • Tripod Mount: yes
  • Dimension: 70mm × 101mm × 60mm


Multi-format, square and half frame – "Wide-angle" lens (unspecified focal length) – Two apertures (unspecified) – Bulb setting, other shutter speed(s?) unspecified – Cable release socket – Tripod mount

(I just love how they’re too cool to actually tell you what you’re buying. I guess Real Lomographers don’t need to concern themselves with the mundane details of, you know… exposure. It’s Lomographic, so you should just buy it.) (corrected in a comment below by davers)

The cheapest package (no, you still can’t just buy a fucking camera from these goons, you have to buy a lifestyle-enhancing, off-the-shelf Lomographic Personality Package) is US $60.

DIY Diana flash trigger

Check out photographer Don Brice‘s excellent modification that allows you to use normal flash/strobe units on Diana toy cameras:

I enjoy using the Diana in the studio and shooting portraits and still life lit with flash. I discovered long ago that by ripping off the usual connector on the end of the syncro cable, you could bare the two wires and jam them down the two flash sockets on the Diana-F model. Ta-da. Plug the other in to your strobes and away you go…

Continue reading instructions at Brice’s blog, Blurry Thinking.

List of Diana toy camera clone names

Diana cameras (the original Holgas) can be really expensive. The results are awesome (and have personalties quite different from Holgas), but for someone who actually wants to make pictures rather than collect cameras, a hunnert bux or more for a piece of 40 year old plastic is simply bullshit. Fortunately, there are a ton of clones, made by the same company with the same warbly lenses, that cost a much saner $10-20. I don’t know about yours, but I’m pretty sure my film doesn’t care whether the camera says Diana or Windsor on the front.

Great! But how do you find the clones? Photographer and camera collector Allan Detrich has a large list of Diana clone names to watch out for. Dig it.