Fujica MA 1 - Lens Made in Japan

Presented at Photokina 1982 The Fujica MA 1 is the final variant of the M-1.

image from here

It is a low-end plastic camera, with fix focus lens Fujinon f8/42mm with 3 elements, setting of the aperture by two weather symbols, sun( f/11) and clouds (f/8) and a flash setting. The only shutter speed is 1/100. The flash setting moves the focus taking into account the limited range of a flash and it has a winding system by a toothed wheel and a green release button.

Hell yeah, enough bare facts! This camera is sooo plastic. Looks like plastic, everything feels plastic and the sound is definitive plastic. “Lens made in Japan” can be read in large capital letters on the front of the lens, as if that was a mark of quality. Not with that camera.

BUT low quality has never been a downside with us lomographers, right? What I got for a whooping 1 EUR is a true Lomographic un-sharpshooter. The Fujinon produces low-fi creamy saturated colors, quite a bit of vignetting especially on blue sky. The pics come out really dreamy, reminds me of a Holga. Unfortunately it is missing a “B” setting. A strange thing about the focus is that it wont focus to infinity, the focus point seems to be set to “group portrait”.

For me the Fujica MA-1 was a great bargain and a big surprise. It´s my “borrow-it-to-a-friend-to-infect-him-with-the-lomographic-virus-camera.”

written by zark on 2009-03-13 #gear #plastic #35mm #review #toy-cam #fujica #japan