Lomography Oktomat

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A review of the eight-lensed wonder that is the Lomography Oktomat. Are 8 lenses too much, too little, or just right?

Photo from Lomography Shop

I got my Lomography Oktomat for Christmas in 2009 and snapped away during the holiday. I thought it would be a great camera to have because you would technically be getting more photos, as each frame contains the 8 mini photos that make up one picture. I thought the design was cute too. I loved the bright red of the main body and the colorful bits around the lenses.

My first idea was that it would be a great camera to make funny faces at, because it would record the movement, so this photo was made:

I love the way it came out so dark.

The main great thing about the Lomography Oktomat is the fluidity it allows you in your photo-taking. Any movement is captured perfectly, so you can get great shots of fast-moving subjects, such as pets or vehicles. It brings a certain livelihood to the images to see a sequence of action captured, and then of course you can make them into nifty little animations, like so:

Here are the shots from my experimental roll of photos taken using the Oktomat:

Unfortunately, I only managed to get this one roll out of it before it stopped working. I'm not sure why, but future rolls would come out completely blank. I figured that light must be coming in somewhere and exposing the film. It's a real shame because I loved the camera a lot, but I've heard a lot of Lomography Oktomat owners saying that their Oktomat broke, so perhaps it's time for Lomography to make a sturdier and more reliable Oktomat 2? I'm sure it would be a welcome and celebrated improvement.

Please comment here about your Oktomat experience, whether positive or negative.

bq. Editor's Note: Did anyone experience the same problem with their Oktomat? What did you do to solve it! Share it with us!

bq. The Oktomat serves up your subject in cleanly sliced 8 little frames. Envision yourself as a movie director with only 2.5 seconds to relate your micro-masterpiece. Get your own Oktomat now!

written by ashdinosaur on 2011-10-12 #gear #oktomat #review #camera #photography #lomography #multi-lens #user-review #requested

7 Comments

  1. maria_vlachou
    maria_vlachou ·

    Mine stopped working too after 5-6 rolls, I think I fixed it but I haven't tested it yet.
    It has two springs inside which open and close the shutters, with time they became loose and they stopped moving. At least that was the problem on my oktomat...
    But you're right, we need the OKTOMAT2!!!

  2. ashdinosaur
    ashdinosaur ·

    Hey you've edited my "colourful" to "colorful" I'M BRITISH HOW DARE YOU

  3. gvelasco
    gvelasco ·

    I can tell from the missing frames in many of your pictures that there were already some problems with the shutters. They can get sticky and either stick opening up which will make that frame underexposed (or black) or stick when they're closing which will make that frame overexposed (or white). Not sure of the fix. Fortunately, mine isn't giving me problems. But, I can tell that you need to be very gentle (but firm) when you wind on the next frame. That's what cocks the shutters. If mine got sticky, I would use naphtha (cigarette lighter fluid) to clean them. It removes stickiness without leaving a residue.

  4. pheebs
    pheebs ·

    Hi guys, if you shoot an email to customerservice@lomography.com we can sure work out a solution for you!

  5. jeffr
    jeffr ·

    i got mine about 4 years ago and unfortunately it never functioned properly from the beginning. the windup often wouldn't pull the film and so I would get overlapping or overexposed film. then after going through 2 rolls with only about 5 total photos that came out, the shutters started getting stuck. i should've contacted customer service early on but didn't know better and it's definitely too late now, though i've read online that quite a lot of people have had problems with their oktomats.

  6. ihave2pillows
    ihave2pillows ·

    So the shutters jammed??? I thought you were being experimental lol

  7. iamtheju
    iamtheju ·

    I just bought one second hand and i can already tell i'm going to be missing the last 2 frames on every shot. I'm going to put a 24exp film through anyway and see what happens. If it is a problem then I will try to fix it and hopefully be able to do a tipster to show the method if there isn't one already.

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