Question about my first roll of film for my Diana camera.

[Alty]

Hi, I recently acquired a very vintage Diana Deluxe toy camera. I am a complete novice with using film cameras, so had no real experience. Anyway I took a series of photos and just got the back from being developed as a test. Overall I was a quite disappointed. There are a few common problems with the photos and I was wandering if you could help identifying them.

Firstly, the majority of the photos had a large black smudge that covered almost half of the bottom of the camera. I'm guessing this is a light leak?

You can see this here:

Also, this photo shows another common problem with a lot of the pictures. The parts you can see are generally incredibly light - almost to the point that nothing can be seen. Does this mean I have been setting the lens' aperture too large?

Also, the photographs you could see were very blurry, e.g.:

Does this mean the shutter speed is too slow? Or do I just have to be a lot more still when taking photos with it?

So yeah, I'm wandering if anyone can help explain these problems a bit better to me? (Bare in mind I have no experience with cameras). Also solutions would be great, or at least let me know if they are unavoidable because they are inherent problems with the camera.

Thanks.

 

[raphaelaaron]

You said it's a vintage diana that you inherited? It may be a problem with the camera itself. Also was it a brand new roll of 120 film?

If it was me, I would think the opposite, because light leaks turn out brightly on film, not dark. And the dark smudge may have been a problem with the lens or some obstruction in the camera itself that interfered with taking a decent picture. Or the film itself may have been corrupted, if it wasn't brand new.

as for the blurriness, it could be a number of things. Like I mentioned, it may be the lens (have you inspected it from the back and front?) and yes, the shutter speed may have been too low and you weren't holding the camera still enough.

overall those diana cameras become too fidgety, because in the end they are what they say they are: just toys. so a camera like that, especially inherited from someone may not produce the quality images you want.

if you found everything to be okay on your end, then it may have been the lab that processed the roll. that's my other guess.

 

[ann]

diana cameras had serious light leaks, they also don't have the ability to change fstops or shutter speed, altho, the holga does have a marking that says f11 or f16 they end up being the same and as i remember the diana was even more basic. It was one of those things given away at carvinal's etc. Who would have known they would become a clut item.

so you need to hold the camera very still as what you are seeing appears to be movement on the part of the OP, watch your light i.e. don't point it directly at a light source, as you can't stop it down.

Try some outdoor shot with the sun behind your left shoulder ( the old fashion way).

You might also want to take a look a Jonathan Bailey website, he is a master at using the Diana camera.

Jonathan Bailey, photographer

 

[ghache]

Part of the film that would have been exposed to light leak would turn brighter than the rest of the exposure. lighter colors, or even white.