I’ve been admiring photographs taken with Lomo cameras for a while on Flickr and this week I bought my first Lomo - the Fisheye. I’d seen it a couple of weeks ago at the Baltic Contemporary Arts Centre shop in Gateshead, priced at £40. I got mine for just over £22 on Amazon (store/seller: gadgetepoint) on Sunday night. It arrived Tuesday morning sharp.

I bought a pack of two FUJICOLOR C200 (36 exp) 35mm film for around £3 and popped a roll in. This week I have been a bit pushed with other things so hadn’t really planned on going anywhere special to take some photos. I did manage to pop out on Thursday afternoon for a couple of hours. I must admit it all feels a bit strange to take a photo and not have immediate playback on an LCD screen to see how it turned out. Plus having to wind the film on after I’ve taken a photo is something I’m having to remember. And there was also the weird self-conscious feeling of using a camera which looks and feels a little like a Fisher Price toy!

I popped the film into ASDA Walmart yesterday lunchtime and had a few options. I didn’t necessarily want the photos printing as to be honest I had few expectations of these photos, given it was my first time with something quite different - and I’ve learned positioning is rather important for a camera with a 170 degree field of vision!! A few photos had my sleeve in, knee in and even my hair in! So, I was given the option to have the photos scanned to disc, no printouts. This suits me as it’s just going onto my Flickr stream anyway and if there was anything worth printing I have a couple of photo-printers at home. There were, as expected, some ropey shots - but a few did turn out okay. Best part is it only cost 97p to have the photos developed/scanned to disc in 1 hour.

You can check out six of my Lomo Fisheye photos, here. Those were the best out of the lot. I had to take some random shots to use up the last of the film as clearly I didn’t take many when I was out, but was keen to get it developed. This isn’t a camera I will use a whole lot, but I do like the way it really enhances the clouds in the sky. I will be taking this on some of my photo walks as it takes quite interesting shots.

If my Fuji S5700 Digital Camera was feeling out in the cold after the arrival of the Lomo Fisheye then it needn’t have. Yesterday it got some attention with a new wide angle lens.

I bought it last week for around £10.50, plus £13 shipping from Hong Kong, through eBay. It’s good to have a wide angle - really liking it’s effect. Hoping for a dry and sunny day next week to go and experiment with it.