Vintage

(Taken from issue 8 of Light Leaks magazine, ) 

The one that has gotten the biggest buzz is Lomography’s "update" on the Diana camera. Did Lomography find the infamous Great Wall Plastic Company factory, brush off the dust and get the plant rolling again? No, but they have taken the original Diana camera and emulated it very well and thrown in some new features that will be welcomed by most enthusiasts.

The overall build and design of the Diana+ is meant to imitate the original design as close as possible. From a few feet, one wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a Diana and a Diana+. Upon closer inspection, you notice some of the Lomography branding on the top of the winding knob and a red logo on the bottom of the camera, but certainly nothing that ruins the overall design for the original Diana lovers.

The lens barrel name plate reads "Diana+" in the same font as the original, except thinner. The distance icons have changed a little, and the measurements on my test model were using meters as its measurement.

One of the first things that caught my attention as I opened the bubble wrap was the entire lens housing was loose when I picked it up, and actually fell off! Luckily I was holding it over the table at the time and no damage was done.

The Diana+ has a completely removable lens that twists off, similar to removable lenses on an SLR camera; it even has dots that line up for you. I had difficulties with this at first because unlike a heavier SLR lens, the plastic is very light and fragile so a delicate handling is required. It actually seemed to fit together quite well, the final twist when attaching the lens will give you a definite "snap" affirming the lens is locked in place

The removable lens serves the best feature of this camera, a pinhole function. Remove the lens and activate the "P" on the aperture lever and presto! You’re pinholing! Just remember to not leave the lens housing on when using the pinhole feature (unless you’re in an experimental mood).

The removable lens and pinhole feature is most likely the suspect to a slightly elongated distance from the shutter to the end of the lens, about an eight of an inch. I wonder if this effects the optics in any way as there doesn’t appear to be any correction for this...

Another great feature about the Diana+ is the ability to shoot both a 4x4 format as well as a 6x6 format. From the back of the camera, any Holga owner will see the familiar manual lever to choose what size format you’d like to use. For 4x4 shooting, a mask (not supplied with my test camera) will have to be inserted, in which case you will want to move the switch to point to the "16", which is the standard size for the original Diana camera.

Another welcome feature to this camera (possibly unintended by its manufacturer) is the ability to disassemble the camera with ease, similar to a Holga. A simple screwdriver is all that is required to disassemble pretty much the entire camera. Even the lens housing is easily removed for anyone wanting to try out their own home-brew lenses.

3 SCREWS REMOVE LENS HOUSING

One noticeable change from the original Diana is the mechanism that holds the film in place from the bottom of the camera. In the Diana+ version, there are two plastic arms that are meant to be bent slightly in order to get the film in place. I personally prefer the rocker arm mechanism of the original Diana, and the Diana+ version does require a bit more skill and delicate handling to align the film. I would also anticipate these rather flimsy pieces to break easily, although I really went to town on them for testing and did not break mine.

Lining up your film and shooting is not much different with the Diana+. I would have preferred some more stickiness of the "B/N" lever, which seemed loose on my model. I also questioned during shooting whether I had actually exposed a shot, as the sound of the shutter is much quieter than the original Diana. The aperture lever was nice and sticky and there was no question it would hold its position. Advancing film was normal and I had no difficulties unloading the film which yielded a tight roll of exposed film.

I took the normal precautions to prevent light leakage on my test model and had no leaking of light on my test rolls. In fact for one test shot, I removed all the tape and danced around in full sunlight for a few minutes and still no light leakage appeared on the film. (I was asked to stop dancing several times though...)

Overall, I found the handling of the Diana+ the same as the original Diana, as long as I was mindful of its differences in the features. I exposed four rolls of film through the Diana+, I’ll share my results.