This is another nice addition to have in my collection; the Lomography Konstruktor 35mm SLR. This one is another DIY kit, which took me just a little over two hours to complete. And I have to say, this is a great little camera that takes some pretty good photos and is enjoyable to use.
The camera is plastic, but a good quality plastic; it really feels nice in my hand. Once I added the faux leather decals to the camera, it felt even better and added to the overall quality of the camera.
Building the camera was fairly straight forward. The instructions that came with it were much easier to understand, when compared to the Fotodiox TLR camera I built last year. Well, it was either that the instructions were easier to follow or because of my past experience building a camera, I had a better understanding as to how everything should work.
This is another all-plastic camera – even the lens is plastic. There is a spring, which makes up the shutter mechanism, and I read from other people’s experiences that it was very important not to accidentally stretch the spring when putting everything together. To do so, would mean that the shutter may not work properly, so I was very careful.
Everything seemed to go well and I was able to successfully build this remarkable little camera. Being an SLR, it’s nice to be able to properly compose the shot before taking the picture, as you get to see what the lens sees. When pressing the shutter button, you get a real solid sounding “click” from the shutter.
This version of the Konstruktor has a PC socket for an external flash and has two shutter speeds: a fixed 1/80 and a bulb mode (for long exposures).
This camera has quickly become a favorite of mine. Here are a few shots from my first roll of film with this camera. I like the natural vignette effect of the lens, and it actually does pretty well with macro shots.
[tag]photography, film, diy, review[/tag]