JPG Magazine: Stories: My Precious: LC-A is A OK

LC-A is A OK

A few months ago I hit a creative block. I was taking pictures which were exposed and focused correctly, but had no artistic merit. This made me lose the motivation to go out and shoot. To overcome this lack of inspiration I started to look for something a bit more alternative. One trend that kept coming up in searches was the LOMO phenomenon. I started seeing images that had bizarre colours and intense vignetting. A bit more research resulted in finding the LOMO Kompact Automat, a.k.a. the LC-A. The LC-A, as the name suggests, is a compact automatic camera. In fact, the only controls at your disposal are for zone focusing and setting an aperture for the hot shoe flash. For the most part the camera is automatic - its light meter will choose an aperture between f/2.8 - f/16 and a shutter speed from 1/500 to 2 minutes. The camera uses aperture priority to reduce the amount of blurry shots.

So what makes this camera special? Well it depends on what you intend to shoot. The majority of LC-A users have the camera for street photography, and this is where the camera excels. The 4 focus settings (0.8m, 1.5m, 3m, inf) mean you can set focus quickly and intuitively, without ever looking at the camera. The shutter and winding mechanism are suitably quiet which is perfect for those candid shots. It has a lovely wide-angle 32mm lens which means you can take pictures without composing and you are near enough guaranteed that your subject will be in the frame. Most importantly for me, however, is the size of the camera. You really wont believe how small and light this camera is until you hold it in your own hands. All of these features make the camera so convenient that it's difficult not to take it everywhere with you. The end result of this is you consequently take more pictures and take more of those rare once-in-a-lifetime shots that you'd normally curse yourself for missing.

The LC-A may not be for everyone. If you regularly lust after glass that is more expensive than a second hand car, then it probably isn't for you. But if you are looking for something a bit different and you embrace imperfections then you could do a lot worse than picking up your own LC-A. But be prepared to use up your current film stocks incredibly quickly!

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