Lomo Smena 8M

So, I'm quite proud of myself for having made it this far. Although I haven't really carved a space out for myself yet, this is one of about 3958 summer projects I have going on, and I haven't abandoned Dusty Shutter yet despite my history with maintaining blogs.

This week I'm going to talk about one of my favourite cameras, the Smena 8M.

The cute little toy camera was manufactured in the 1970s in the USSR, which reminds me of a little quirk I love about collecting cameras. It's a lot of fun finding gear with "Made in USSR" or "Made in East Germany" stamps on it, especially when everything works smoothly. It's kind of a trip that most of these things are way older than me.

Anyway, the Smena 8M is a completely manual, plastic-bodied camera. I found this kind of daunting, having been dependent on internal light meters. However, the Smena wants to be your friend! It will help you...

It has four aperture settings (the lens is an f4 40mm), five shutter speeds and a B setting. Designed for beginners, the camera is imprinted with suggestions for all these settings: each f-stop is coupled with an ISO rating and each shutter speed setting is given a tiny graphic of a sun, clouds, rainy clouds and so on. A novice can match the weather and their film's ISO to the settings pretty easily and get close to the correct exposure.

While often dismissed as a toy, the Smena is a really great tool. From using it I've quickly learned how to expose correctly in daylight without a light meter, and it will teach you how to think fast about adjusting your settings and keeping your exposure the same. What a gift in an age when anyone can buy a digital camera and not have to think about anything at all to get a good picture!

When I bought my camera (which was $40 off craigslist although I'm sure you can find them cheaper) I was really puzzled by a few things. First of all, loading it is kind of sketchy. I immediately thought I had been ripped off because it didn't seem like it would work with its loose, plastic pieces and minimalistic design. I also had to cut the film leader, which was a new thing for me. The film counter confounded me, so I thought I was doing something wrong, but it turns out it's just a bit odd and kind of useless.

The Smena also requires that you cock the shutter before taking a picture, which is weird to get used to... But it means you can get pretty creative with double exposure, which I intend to experiment with more in the future.

But when all was said and done, little Smena worked better than I dreamed! Its little glass lens is quite clean and sharp, and these photos have a lot of character.

The first shot was taken on a trip to Elkford, BC, and the other two are from my program's end of year bash. Everything was taken with expired film, 200 ISO I believe.

Cheers!