karen maze photoblog

I’ve been really into this Diana Lens I picked up recently. I got a 38mm lens and a Nikon mount, so I could put it on my Nikon D700 DSLR - and it is so much fun. Sure, it isn’t really Lomography, but it gives me the flexibility I’m used to, with an added element of fun.

There are many different Lomography cameras. The Diana lens, as you might expect, is usually found on a Diana camera, which is a medium format film camera made almost entirely of plastic - that includes the lens. Here’s Tuna with his special edition Tokyo Rising Diana:

Tuna and his Tokyo Rising Diana

I of course, am using my Nikon D700 with the Diana Lens and not the entire camera. But the effect is still pretty sweet. Getting sharp photos isn’t really the point…the point is to achieve something unusual, something dreamy, something definitely NOT WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) - and something a bit unpredictable.

The photos below have, of course, been post processed. I use Adobe Lightroom - only for color and contrast on these imgaes, though. I did not do any cloning or compositing or adjustment layers on these images. Not even selective adjustment or gradient filter tools.

I will be experimenting with film and the Diana. That’s the next step. Until then, I’m having lots of fun with the lens and post processing.

West Hollywood Bus Stop

Santa Monica and La Brea

Ritz Carlton at LA Live in downtown Los Angeles

The Hair. The Car. The Attitude. The Man. They are One.

Olvera Street, downtown Los Angeles

At the Golden Dragon Parade in Chinatown. Downtown Los Angeles.

At the Golden Dragon Parade in Chinatown. Downtown Los Angeles.

At the Golden Dragon Parade in Chinatown. Downtown Los Angeles.

The counter at Phillipe's - an LA Icon.

Palm Trees. Lens Flare. Love it.

Some of the plant life in the Walt Disney Concert Hall garden

Looking at the back of Walt Disney Concert Hall

For the Lomo purists out there, I do have some shots taken with the Diana camera - but in the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t take them. Tuna chose to start with a roll of Fuji Provia (ISO 400) chrome film and cross process it. “Cross processing” means that you take chrome (positive) film to the lab and tell them to process it like it’s negative film, or vice versa. When developing chromes, which are normally processed using E-6 chemistry, and processing them using the chemistry intended for negatives (C-41), you can generally expect super black blacks, lots of contrast, and a color shift of some sort. Different types of film behave differently under different conditions, but when it comes to Lomography, that’s part of the fun.

Photos below by Tuna.

-km