Photography

New smartphone accessory digitizes your LomoKino movies

New smartphone accessory digitizes your LomoKino movies
The LomoKino Smartphone Holder is a smartphone accessory for digitizing your LomoKino movies without need of an app
The LomoKino Smartphone Holder is a smartphone accessory for digitizing your LomoKino movies without need of an app
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Front: the "gloriously analogue" LomoKino SmartPhone Holder
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Front: the "gloriously analogue" LomoKino SmartPhone Holder
Without a smartphone the LomoKino SmartPhone Holder seems to say "hug me ... please"
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Without a smartphone the LomoKino SmartPhone Holder seems to say "hug me ... please"
LomoKino SmartPhone Holder: pleasingly low tech ... possibly
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LomoKino SmartPhone Holder: pleasingly low tech ... possibly
Without a smartphone the LomoKino SmartPhone Holder seems to say "hug me ... please"
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Without a smartphone the LomoKino SmartPhone Holder seems to say "hug me ... please"
LomoKino SmartPhone Holder fulfilling its destiny
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LomoKino SmartPhone Holder fulfilling its destiny
The complete LomoKino set is effectively a whole bunch of plastic for making your iPhone videos worse
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The complete LomoKino set is effectively a whole bunch of plastic for making your iPhone videos worse
The LomoKino Smartphone Holder is a smartphone accessory for digitizing your LomoKino movies without need of an app
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The LomoKino Smartphone Holder is a smartphone accessory for digitizing your LomoKino movies without need of an app
Without a smartphone the LomoKino SmartPhone Holder seems to say "hug me ... please"
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Without a smartphone the LomoKino SmartPhone Holder seems to say "hug me ... please"
View gallery - 8 images

Remember Lomography's LomoKino we featured back in November? It's an uber-faux-retro film camera that can shoot about a minute of 3-5 frames-per-second footage using any old 35 mm stills film. Well, Lomography have now released the LomoKino SmartPhone Holder which, though you mightn't have guessed by the name, is a means of digitizing your LomoKino movies using only your smartphone (*cough* by which they mean iPhone *cough*). Cunningly, it's done without need of an app. Just one question, though: why?

The principle couldn't be simpler. The LomoKino SmartPhone Holder attaches your LomoKinoScope viewer (sold separately, small print-watchers) to your smartphone, so that your phone's camera lens looks into the LomoKinoScope's viewfinder. Hit record in your cameraphone's video mode, turn the crank and hey presto - you've a digital version of your analog video sitting in your smartphone's memory.

After all, why shoot 50 seconds of crisp, high-def video at 30-frames-per-second directly on your iPhone when you can shoot 50 seconds of crappy 5-frames-per-second film, then digitize it with your phone with the use of a US$24.90 bit of plastic - resulting in a video of identical file size? Other than time, money, common sense and pride, I can't think of a single reason not to snap one up.

Without a smartphone the LomoKino SmartPhone Holder seems to say "hug me ... please"
Without a smartphone the LomoKino SmartPhone Holder seems to say "hug me ... please"

Even if this does sound like a bit of fun, it's worth considering you'll need both a LomoKino camera and LomoKinoScope viewer if you don't have one already. Along with the LomoKino SmartPhone Holder, these can be had, packaged, for $111.45. And then there's the additional expense of buying and developing film.

If that still sounds like a good deal, I suggest you buy now, before Instagram gets round to launching an update for video which will retro-fy your digital movies sans hardware (and probably for free) thereby rendering this thing even more obsolete than it's supposed to be. I'm all for analog technology, and am even begrudgingly partial to the faux-retro aesthetic - but this feels like a lot of work (and not to mention a lot of physical stuff) for relatively little gain. Once you make the decision to digitize, it's pixels all the way down whichever way you jump.

Source: Tech Radar UK

View gallery - 8 images
2 comments
2 comments
Michael Mantion
I don\'t get it..
Harold Voice-Of
Hey snarky guy, think idea is \"look of film different to look of digital video\"... Is like back to nature movement, new primitivism. Compare of HD shot on smartphone that look like bloody CCTV and more interesting \"old skool\" film not valid is like say \"Hey why you want that Picasso is all like her head look 2 directions at once and shit?! You want to be getting nice photo of cat in basket done at local mall photographer is more realistic!!\"