Diana F Cameras Views

General Goods

Normally, I use somewhat more sophisticated cameras than the Diana (that is, if you would like to call a Zorki-4 or a Nikon F50 'sophisticated'), but sometimes I'm fed up with their too perfect, too sharp and too uninvolved down-to-earth view of things and I pick up my $1 Diana, to make some moody, dreamy photographs. The simpleness of the Di is a relief,compared to modern-day beasts like the Canon EOS-1 or the Nikon F5. No worry about shutter speeds: the thing only has two. Diaphragm? Perforated plate. Contrast? Sharpness? Not on this camera!

My involvement with toy camera photography started when I read an article in a German photo magazine (Das FotoMAGAZINE, they did an article on the Diana in their february-1999 issue). It was an article on the Holga (die Holga und wie sie die Welt sah), but it also vaguely mentioned the Diana: the mother of toy cameras. The article made me enthusiastic. I wanted to have a Holga. I wanted to go back to basics after using a Nikon for two years. I basically wanted to be a toy camera photographer.

I've heard of American fellow photographers who seek the Diana in every nook and cranny and are happy to pay enormous prices to become the proud owner of a nice 'no-label' example. I think that's absolutely ridiculous, this piece of praised junk isn't worth that much effort and money. It's like buying Rembrandts crooked chair for $millions just because this old man sat on it once. Can you see the ridicule of buying a badly made all-plastic camera for about 1000x its original manufacturing cost? I can. If you want to get started with toy cameras, I would recommend the -in America- readily available Holga. OK, so it's too refined. And has better optics than the Diana. And the housing is too good etc, etc. But at least it's affordable! You can actually worsen the Holga's image quality a great deal.

The Diana first appeared during the early 1960s as a inexpensive box camera sold by the Great Wall Plastic Factory of Kowloon, Hong Kong.[3][4][5] Most were exported to the United States and the United Kingdom. In the United States, the Diana was imported by the Power Sales Company of Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.[5][6] During the 1960s, Power Sales Company wholesaled the Diana by the case - 144 cameras - at about 50 cents U.S. per unit to a variety of retailers and promotional merchandisers.[5][7]