Susan got me a Diana+ camera for christmas last year during our road trip. The Diana is a plastic medium-format camera that was originally introduced in the 60s and has seen a recent resurgence among photo geeks (and wannabes like myself). It’s an-all plastic “cheap” film camera with all manner of manufacturing defects that result in photos that are blurry, vignetted (blurring around the edges), and rather low contrast. Basically, dreamy lo-fi photos. It’s a medium-format camera (120 film) so you get rather large negatives (12 5.2 by 5.2 centimeter) which are appropriate for printing large photos. It’s manual in a toy-like way. It has three aperture settings (f11, f13, f19), two shutter speeds (1/60 and bulb), and a focus dial that adjusts from 1meter to inf. Since the viewfinder does not interact with the lens mechanism in anyway — you’re basically looking through a hole — none of these settings can be previewed before a shot. Taking photos with it forces you to consider how your settings are going to affect the outcome, which you should be doing anyway, but with a modern camera you at least have a light meter. So, it has a bit of a steep learning curve, or perhaps “shoot and see” while taking pictures.

I shot two black and white and two color rolls on the trip. The black and whites are still at the lab but I was eager so I picked up the color rolls since they were ready. You can see that in a few of them the film wasn’t advanced the same amount for each picture. I think the lab should have been able to correct for this, but they were probably using a machine.

New Orleans

buggy ride
Red streaks and vignetting. I’m still learning to advance the film to the correct position.

street performers in new orleansdog (nola)
These guys were nice and let me take their picture.

Mississippi

so-close 6
It’s tricky to frame the photos correctly since the viewfinder doesn’t interact with the lens in anyway. I was hanging out of the window while taking this shot, and though the car appears in the frame, I like this one.

Austin

lake austin
Could be the opening of an exploitation movie. This is present day Austin though, on top of Mount Bonnell looking over Lake Austin.

sisters in car
This would be an annoying exposure on any camera but I decided to try it anyway. We’re inside where it’s rather dark and the outside (brightly lit) is in the center of the frame. In theory I should have exposed longer but there would be a giant glowing bright spot in the center.

xmas with the fam
Christmas evening with the fam. The mood here is very strange but I dig what’s going on with the lighting.