While I love the idea of Lomography hosting a piece on the Retina Ia, I think this needs a bit of a rewrite. I think there are some confusing facts and other information that needs to be clarified. Anyone up to the task? Surely, we have some resident Retina aficionados.
Hmmm... I'd like to know how he gets f2.8 with the 1a he shows in the pictures.
Definitely a badly written article full of sweeping statements and incorrect generalizations. "Often regarded by most photographers as completely useless"... what a rubbish statement.
Boy, he likes the sound of his voice, doesn't he? I grade student papers for a living. There's a type of fail paper that is written by someone who can always string words together but who hasn't done the research. This guy's article is a little like that.
Mind you, he's writing to the committed Lomo crowd, so I suppose he is saying things that they understand but which we read as empty words.
I love my Retina 1a (an f3.5 by the way) and have had it in my coat pocket all winter. It feels solid. I just finished a roll of Sensia and put in a roll of 200 C41 film. It's a fine camera despite, as the guy says, a lack of a rangefinder.
Radioactive meters? Frankenstein Limbo? And he probably stole the pictures of the camera off the 'net somewhere instead of taking one of the actual camera (that's where the f2.8 reference gets muddled).
But then the whole review doesn't read any different from any other Lomography article I've seen. And reading the comments below it kind of lets you in on the type of person they cater to: "A friend of mine pulled out a crate of old cameras in her basement. Inside was a Retina IIIc that I instantly fell in love with. Can't wait to get my hands on a lens so I can try it out!" Whaaaaaat?
"The experience of freezing a moment for further study is improved by not having the perfect exposure or even the most advanced tool, but by having a character that reflects our peculiarities either in terms of results or just the funky style an old camera like the Retina Ia brings."
(quoted from the Lomography article)
Though interesting, it seems to me that the thought here needs some clarification--there are too many subjects to figure out what applies to what. But wiith respect to the Retina 1A-- it is capable of accurate exposure (by setting) and accurate focus (by scale) and it does so with precision. If "funky style" applies to either the photograph or the experience, it isn't really the result of the camera but the result of how the photographer uses it. Maybe the author just means that it looks funny to use an old camera.
