A view from a Castle on a hill in Austria. A warm, soft, sunny day…

Memories of a golden day on Dymchurch Beach. Copper sands, a metal sky.

It maybe wasn’t this deep a red, but somehow that’s how I saw it.

This photo is also on my Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/listing/97184623/an-open-metal-sky-golden-reds-coppers

A blurry figure on a pebbly beach.

A mostly black-and-white photo with just a hint of colour.

This photo was a bit of an experiment in through-the-viewfinder (TtV) photography. This is where you get an old top-view twin-lens-reflex camera from the 50s or 60s (I have a couple of 1950s Kodak Duaflex cameras) and take a photo of what you see through the viewfinder.

The problem with this is it’s not too practical because you have to carry round an old camera, and new digital camera, and a length of tube, like a Pringles tube.

Instead I decided to take a blank photo through the viewfinder, and use this as a mask over other photos, in effect merging the two shots. The result is this photo!

This photo is available on my Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/listing/97562629/matchstick-beach-a-blurry-figure-on-a

Statuesque sun-bleached wooden posts stand like sentinels on a pebbly beach.

Taken on a bright, sunny day on Winchelsea Beach on the south coast of England.

I gave this photo a really pale, minimalist and bleached feel. At the time the beach seemed somehow so pale and washed out, and I wanted to reflect that feel in this photo.

This photo can also be found on my Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/listing/97605707/beach-sentinels-sun-bleached-wooden

Another mysterious metal box lying around in Kent. This time it’s brown, not yellow.

This metal box is actually at the back of Derek Jarman’s old house at Dungeness. The building in the distance is the nuclear power station.

Folkestone harbour. A sunny day. A rusty rail.

This was actually taken on a Canon EOS, but it has a kind of lomographic feel thanks to the magic of Color Efex Pro 4. Not a photoshop in sight!

A mysterious yellow box on Folkestone seafront.

Taken a few years ago as the old fun fair was being dismantled on Folkestone seafront. Who knows why the Yellow Box was there, in an empty bit of semi-urban wasteland.

It’s not there any more.

Memories of a cool, bright sunny day on a country walk.

Taken on a Diana F+

Some of the bright sunny day got into the camera, creating this rather magical effect.

The Lomography LomoKino is a new Lomography camera. Lomography (aka Lomographische AG) are the clever Austrians who are pretty much solely responsible for the craze with lo-fi, surreal photos and “toy” cameras.

35mm cine?

The LomoKino is a 35mm cine camera. You could see it as a standard 35mm camera which can take quarter-frame shots as quick as you can rotate the handle. i.e. about 3-4 frames a second. So in general you’re not going to home anything like the old super-8 home movie quality.

Or just something fun?

No, the LomoKino is firmly aimed at toy camera enthusiasts, Lomo fans, and camera geeks who want something fun and a bit different. People who don’t really care about the quality of the finished film as much as they enjoy the experience of taking the film and watching the weird results.

After all, if you really wanted to, you could simulate the effect on any modern DSLR and string together the resulting photos into a movie. There’s probably an iPhone app that lets you shoot a LomoKino type video.

The box

The camera itself is well-built and fairly solid for the £65/$100 price tag. Don’t bother with the add-on LomoKinoScope device. It lets you preview a film taken with the camera, but only makes sense if you used positive film. You probably used good old standard negative film, so viewing it in the scope will be visual gobbledygook.

Controls

Controls are basic. A “close up” button allows you to focus as close as 0.6m (2 feet). There are also 3 stops: f/5.6, f/8, and f/11. They might as well have marked them ‘overcast’, ‘cloudy’, and ‘sunny’, but I suppose the numbers lends the whole experience a sense of professionalism. Maybe.

Film?

I’m not sure what film is best. On a bright sunny day you might want to use 100 or 200 ISO film, and set the f-stop to f/11…

Oh who cares? Just use whatever film you have. You’re not going to get perfection from this camera anyway, so who cares if it’s all a bit experimental. That’s part of the fun.

Using the thing

Loading the film is fiddly, but doable. You might even be able to load a film in under a minute with a bit of practice… There is a helpful video on the LomoKino microsite. Actually it’s not all that helpful, because they make it look easy and quick. But it at least gives you confidence that you’re going in the right general direction.

So, you’ve got your film loaded, f-stop sorted, shot planned (or not). Hand on the crank, and it’s time to look through the viewfinder…

The viewfinder general?

OK the viewfinder is a total waste of space as a useful tool. It’s there as a nice extra gadgety thing. There is no way that you’re going to be able to turn the little crank and hold the LomoKino up to your eye and look through the viewfinder all at the same time. But like I say, it’s a nice little extra. And I love the way it pops up. Nice

Fast and furious

The trick to winding the crank is probably not to go crazy. Just keep up a steady pace, and make sure you’re pointing the thing in roughly the right direction. My first film consisted of a lot of sky. I like sky. But not that much.

So you’re winding away, and after about 20-30 seconds you’re beginning to think “this has been going on for a while now. A bit longer than I thought… has the film finished?”

Fear not. A handy little red marker pops up out the top of the camera about 3mm when the film’s run through. You might even notice it! But I never do, because I’m still cranking that handle and trying to keep the camera pointing in the right direction.

Processing – film to digital

You’ve taken your home movie. You’ve taken the film out the camera. Now what?

Well, you get the film processed and on to your laptop or other post-pc device.

The first step is to realise that you now have no ordinary 35mm film. It’s one which has each frame split into 4, with no clear division between each frame. No ordinary film means no ordinary processing lab (although do ordinary processing labs still exist?)

Actually you might well be able to get it processed just fine by an average processing lab, so long as you warn them that your film is a bit weird, and it’s meant to be a bit weird. And make it clear you just want them to process the film and put it on CD. They should break the continuous line of 144 small frames into their normal 35mm size, with 4 small frames per 35mm frame.

Quite moving

The last bit – converting a load of still images to a movie – has become a lot easier thanks to the brilliant work of Michal Gron and his kinocut app.

You basically run the app, load in your standard format still frames (like the one shown to the left) that you’ve got on your CD, and clever little kinocut, well… cuts them up into little bits and builds an mp4. Easy.

Done!

And there you go! OK it requires some effort and experimentation, and playing around. But somehow the extra effort makes it all seem more worthwhile.

The LomoKino is perhaps a slightly pricey toy camera. But if you love these sorts of lo-fi, toy cameras – and if you love the effort of crafting a film rather than just pressing a button – then you really will want to start saving those pennies. Or just smash open your piggy-bank right now!