Challenge! A 'Lo-FI' A Day Challenge

gryphon1911

Hall of Famer
Location
Central Ohio, USA
Name
Andrew
Start Date
Feb 1, 2021
End Date
Feb 28, 2021
After participating in the SIJ 2021 for January, I thought of an idea for myself. I'm going to do a type of personal 'Single In', but with lo-fi photography.
The off-shoot weekend of film sparked the idea, really.

What does that mean? I have to take one shot, and only one shot each day with some kind of lo-fi camera and post it no matter how it turns out.

Lo-fi camera means something similar to a lomo film camera of some kind Diana f+, polaroid, lomography film cameras, even lo-fi digital cameras like the Digital Holga or Yashica Y35. I don't want to limit it too much, so one could mix and match through out the month the different cameras.

Or, if you don't have a lo-fi camera, but wanted to shoot some expired film or lomography film...then have at it.

Have a digital camera and a lo-fi lens? That counts too!

Just have some fun with this.

I'll find this a bit easier for me as I have enough Polaroid and Instax cameras to be able to squeeze off a shot a day no problem.

My arsenal of cameras will be:

Polaroid SX-70 (I just got a 6 pack of B&W film, so yay me!)
Polaroid SUN 600
Diana F+ w/ Instax back (Instax Mini)
Lomography Instax Wide

Digital Holga
Yashica Y35 w/ 6 different digiFilm options

I'll start a thread with a post for each day. If others want to play along, then feel free. I can see this being really fun for those with instant film cameras.

I'll post information about the image, the gear used and the process. Hopefully, I won't screw up too many shots or run into a pack of film that gets jacked (I've had that happen before, where whole packs of instant film were just bad).

I'll start doing this February 1, 2021 and go through to the 28th. I won't be as formal as a 'Single In', probably just have one thread with a post for each day.
 
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Well, I thought this challenge sounded like a lot of fun, but didn't think I had any lo-fi gear. Except for my wife's Fuji Mini 90 Classic, but I don't want to chew through the Instax film we have on hand. But, "lo" and behold, I found THESE two items in my "digital random stuff too cheap to bother selling" (good thing I don't own a label maker) drawer:

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The little GF3 was one I bought for the lens that came with it, and it had some serious LCD scratching. I remedied this by removing the laminated synthetic top layer of the LCD and replacing it with a generic properly sized screen protector. Looks a little rough, but works perfectly.

The lens is a Lomography "experimental" 12mm f8 with plastic optics. I had the three-pack, and have actually used one of them as a freebie when selling a M4/3 body simply because I didn't have a body cap. The 12mm should work nicely for this though.

I will use the vivid JPEG mode, with saturation and contrast turned all the way up. I can't guarantee I'll get every day, but I'm gonna leave this in my vehicle and plan on just snapping a photo out the window every day. Here's day 1, right outside my door (yes, building THAT close to my house. Not the happiest about that). I did bump the exposure up in post, mostly shadows. Next time I'll just overexpose... GF3 makes it hard to see what I'm gonna get.

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I didn't have a lo-fi camera but I loved the idea of this challenge so on Sunday I ordered the cheapest Instax camera from Amazon that would arrive in time for me to take part. As you can see it turned out to be an Instax Mini 11 in fetching white! I don't think it would have been my first choice had I not left it to the last minute - while I can live with its point and shoot nature I think the flash always firing might prove challenging - but IMHO he does look cute! To keep the film costs down I'm just going to shoot one photograph each day and post whatever comes out. I don't have access to a scanner so I will need to photograph the print with a regular camera. I'm using the colour Instax mini film but the Q2 Monochrom just reminded me that I need to learn to work within limitations as he can only do black and white!
 
From the Digital Holga (went lo-fi on the image of the Holga too!! Used the FIMO 1903 camera app):
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Comes the view from my front door at 5:09pm. It is currently 22F (-5.5C for the rest of the world). My storm door fogged up quickly.
Digital Holga was set to 135 mode (it has 35mm framing or 120 framing) and monochrome mode (it has a color and monochrome mode).
I set the exposure to cloudy for this one (it has 2 exposure modes, cloudy and daylight).

Straight out of camera. Just copied from the SD card and posted.
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I love this idea! Thank you for suggesting it, Andrew. I’m going to be using one or the other of two cameras, the first of which is my Lomogrsphy Automat Glass, which is both occasionally challenging but also insanely fun. Here it is —

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The other camera is my oldest digital camera, a tiny Lumix GX1 (which is close to the same vintage as agentlossing’s GF3. I converted it to infrared a few years ago but in the interests of Lo-fi technology, I’ll be using it with my all-plastic tiny Olympus 9mm fisheye lens... which I hope may yield some strange results. Here it is—

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I didn't have a lo-fi camera but I loved the idea of this challenge so on Sunday I ordered the cheapest Instax camera from Amazon that would arrive in time for me to take part. As you can see it turned out to be an Instax Mini 11 in fetching white! I don't think it would have been my first choice had I not left it to the last minute - while I can live with its point and shoot nature I think the flash always firing might prove challenging - but IMHO he does look cute! To keep the film costs down I'm just going to shoot one photograph each day and post whatever comes out. I don't have access to a scanner so I will need to photograph the print with a regular camera. I'm using the colour Instax mini film but the Q2 Monochrom just reminded me that I need to learn to work within limitations as he can only do black and white!

Just a quick tip with regards to scanning Instax photos - there actually IS an interesting (and inexpensive) way to do it... IF you have an iPhone: it's an App, developed by a brainy Croatian photographer and code-warrior, which somehow uses your phone's camera but applies a special algorithm to magically scan an Instax print and more or less render it correctly as a digital photo file (including the white borders!). An earlier version of the App was called Polar but it was replaced by the current version, whose unoriginal title is "Snap - Instant Photo Scanner". And it really works (with a tiny bit of trial and error). The 'catch' is that one must have an iPhone - since the developer (Igor Rinkovec) has not yet (apparently) created an Android version.

The scan of my Instax print that I posted earlier today was done with this little App 🙃
 
Just a quick tip with regards to scanning Instax photos - there actually IS an interesting (and inexpensive) way to do it... IF you have an iPhone: it's an App, developed by a brainy Croatian photographer and code-warrior, which somehow uses your phone's camera but applies a special algorithm to magically scan an Instax print and more or less render it correctly as a digital photo file (including the white borders!). An earlier version of the App was called Polar but it was replaced by the current version, whose unoriginal title is "Snap - Instant Photo Scanner". And it really works (with a tiny bit of trial and error). The 'catch' is that one must have an iPhone - since the developer (Igor Rinkovec) has not yet (apparently) created an Android version.

The scan of my Instax print that I posted earlier today was done with this little App 🙃

The Polaroid app doesn’t do a half bad job either.
 
Sorry if this is a stupid question but I read through the description of the Polaroid App and didn't really understand some things -- are you saying that one can use the Polaroid App on your phone to do a 'scan' of a physical Instax print?

Yes, that is possible.
Screenshot from the app. You have to scroll over.

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Looks like fun. Dug deep into a drawer to pull out the Nikon Coolpix L1. Goes way back to 2005! Uses AA batteries so no hassle with charging. Here's a photo of it taken with what used to be my favorite lowfi app, Hipstamatic! I had not opened that app in a long time. Still works. This camera version in Hipstamatic is called Music. Who names these things?
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I’m working on it. I’m looking for the charger for my 4 mp Pentax Optio and trying to get my computer to read the CF card for my 2.1 mp Nikon Coolpix 950. I really want to use the Nikon. I also have an older 1 MP Olympus, but it uses those paper cards and I no longer have a reader. I could always use the 42 MP A7R and hit it with the Lomography filter. :rofl:
 
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