I’ve tried to love you Lomo Fisheye2 – I really have. I wanted us to get on so much that I gave you more chances than I ever would another camera. But I can’t go on like this. It’s over.

The first problem with the Lomo Fisheye2 is that it takes forever to fill a 36 exposure roll of film, so when you eventually get back your film it contains stuff from months ago. This is annoying, trust me. For instance, 5 months after the Weston-super-Mare Pier fire I’ve only just got my fisheye photos of the event back.

Oh, and they are rubbish.

And that’s not the biggest problem – I see some pretty exciting and interesting images taken with the fisheye2 when I look around the interweb, but I can’t seem to take any at all. I sit and scan in the negatives which takes absolutely ages then look at the results and wish I hadn’t bothered. There must be something wrong with you, you annoyingly cute looking quirky object of my ire.

I’ve tried crazy angles, close up, long range, and all I get is a picture that looks like a normal photo with a dark circle drawn over it. Take these for example – this one is from the center of the longleat maze, I thought it would turn out great but instead I hate it.

I suppose if I had taken a normal photo at the same time I might see something special about the fisheye one, but I didn’t so I don’t and so now I officially hate you Lomo Fisheye2. And what I hate about you more than anything is that I bought 5 rolls of 36 exposure film that I don’t want to put inside you. I’ll sell you on ebay and I hope you get bought by some clumsy fool who drops you and smashes you all up.

“Ooh look at me with my mad perspective and converging verticals, aren’t I kooky and unique?” No you are a gimmick and rubbish. And I hate you. In fact, that’s it, where is my hammer….

A more balanced man might consider his own shortcomings and perhaps give some thought to the possibility that it may infact not be the camera that is to blame – after all, other people seem to manage to take good photos with the Lomo Fisheye2…

Don’t be silly. It’s the camera that is to blame, how could it possibly be me. Goodbye Lomo Fisheye2. I wont miss you.

Please forgive the title of this post – if it’s any consolation it hurts when I read it as well.

As well as a mountain of 120 slide film, I also just got back a roll of 35mm Ilford XP2 black and white film which I had put in my Lomo Fisheye 2 about 6 months ago. Results were less than impressive – in my (albeit brief) experience the fisheye image format really only works at all in a limited number of circumstances and even less when using black and white film.

First, 36 exposures is too many for a single roll of film as you can’t know whether the speed rating of the film is appropriate for all the conditions you’ll be shooting in. In this case, XP2 at 400iso simply wasn’t sensitive enough for most of the pictures I took, as I appear to have shot half the roll indoors. For indoor work I was using my Nikon SB600 flash in the hotshoe, but they are all still underexposed. ISO800 with flash might work.

Out of 36 exposures, at least 10 are simply blank. User error I fear. Of the rest, only a handful are even remotely interesting, and even that is probably stretching the definition of interesting a bit.

Nonetheless I’ll press on and share them here anyway, because quite frankly, I can. Click on each of these to make them all big and that.

So what’s next for the fisheye? Dunno to be honest. I’m not really getting the level of enjoyment out of it that I am the Holga and I’ve been spoiled by the lovely big 120 film images so find the tiddly 35mm negatives a bit underwhelming all round. I’ll whack a 24 exposure roll of colour film in it next and see what transpires.

Another lump of hard earned cash goes out and I now have a huge scanner sat on my desk. It’s a hulking brooding presence reminding me at all times that I waste money. I did scan in the first film results from my Fisheye2 though, so it’s not all bad news.

Seems at my wedding party I was waving the camera around like a loon, with very few results worthy of mention… For those that care, it’s shot using Fuji Provia 400ISO colour film. I’ve now shoved a roll of Ilford B&W film in there to see how that goes.

Seduced by glamorous packaging I left the USA £70 lighter in my wallet and my luggage heavier to the tune of two(!!) new cameras. These use something called film which sounds much more exciting than it really is. Anyway I present to you my Holga 120 CFN medium format thingy and also my Lomo fisheye2 35mm fisheye camera.

The problems here are twofold. 1.) Film costs loads to process and takes ages. 2.) I have to buy a scanner to scan them in to my computer.

Someone should invent a camera that records images in a format that you can open instantly on your computer. It could be called a digitalisifier.