This is what we do with new cameras - take them out on an adventure or two to truly get a feel for 'em.  We brought this  Lomo LC-A 120  to this beautiful vista of Mount Rainier. 

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The little Lomo LC-A 120 camera that could.  This camera is fun and surprisingly capable.  It uses a 38mm lens to expose a 6x6cm neg, the same specs as the Hasselblad Super Wide, by the way.  With the LC-A, you have this incredible wide angle, medium format, snap shooter that meters automatically and regulates shutter speed (aperture is fixed, wide open at f/4.5). Focus is zone based.  The camera is plastic but that helps make it so lightweight.  To recap: wide, fast, light and, throw in, quiet too. 

The cons? The iffy reliability of the build would be the big one.  The first LC-A we got in the shop failed to fire the shutter, half the time it produced blank exposures, and the frame spacing was very inconsistent.  Lomography was gracious enough to send us a replacement and this one seems to be working just fine.  After jiggling the batteries around in the first camera, we got the failure rate down from 50% to about 25%.

The Lomo LC-A 120 is an incredibly fun camera that produces surprisingly sharp images with an exceptionally wide focal length.  It makes a great street camera.  It is exciting any time the world of film photography grows, be it by new film or new film cameras, so we are grateful to have this guy to play with and sell.  Is it perfect?  Of course not.  The cost of this camera also makes potential blank frames an even tougher thing to swallow; while the LC-A is plastic, the camera itself is not necessarily cheap.  We hope these issues were a fluke on our first camera and won't manifest in other cameras as readily.

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Tools for getting the week started properly: camera, cinnamon sticky bun, and golden morning light.  On a more camera-related note, we got a replacement LC-A 120 in for a camera that had been acting up.  This new camera confirms our feelings that, as long as this camera behaves mechanically, then we love this medium format, super wide, point-and-shooter. 

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Two different ways of exposing medium format film behind 38mm lenses.  On the left, you have the Lomo LC-A 120, a wide angle point-and-shoot camera that makes surprisingly sharp, crisp images.  On the right, you have the Hasselblad 903SWC which makes unsurprisingly sharp and crisp images.  One of these cameras is more expensive than the other.  One is more compact.  One is more reliable.  Both are viable ways of doing ultra-wide angle medium format photography.

Here we are again...  If you have been following us awhile, you already know that we think the Lomo LC-A 120 is an imperfect camera (though, which camera isn't?).  That being said, we keep finding ourselves coming back to it and taking it out for photo walks.  It really is fun to use and it does make better quality images than it probably has any right to.⠀ ⠀

Pro tip: Be wary of the sliding lens cover when the camera is stashed in your bag.  This cover has a tendency to get pushed open.  This turns on the shutter button which, when partially depressed, triggers a red light inside the viewfinder.  On more than one occasion, we have pulled this camera out of our bags to find out that the shutter button had been depressed and that red light had successfully drained the camera's batteries.

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