AquaPix: Cheap and Gives Amazing Pictures

I bought it in a sale for just 30 reais (equivalent to about $16), and couldn’t imagine that it was able to give me such good results.

Aquapix is an underwater camera that works with any 35mm film. You need no batteries, flash, or muscles since it is too light. It floats on water and already comes with a strap, so you can fall into the water and never lose it. Despite what its manual says about always loading it with high ISO films, I’ve tried it with 100, 400 and 800 ISO and got great shots with all. Maybe it’s just a case of choosing the right moment for the click, with the right sun and the right subject.

It looks like a toy and works like one. Okay, okay. It’s a toy! Its 28mm lens has only one aperture setting (f9) and a speed of 1/100 seconds. You even can use it out of the plastic waterproof box if you are far from the ocean — or river, swimming pool, bathtub…etc.

The picture above was shoot with a Lomography CN 800, a high speed ISO film, as recommended by the manual. To my surprise, however, it didn’t yield pictures as good as I expected. Not the film’s fault, but mine: In most of the shots I forgot my finger in front of the lens. What a dumb thing to do! Here are the other pictures that came out good:

Another important thing to remember when shooting with Aquapix is that the sunnier is the day, the better your photos will come out. Golden hour (around 5 or 6 pm) is the later you can take a risk. This one is a picture I took around 6 pm. The sun wasn’t directly over the swimming pool, then the image went dark even with a ISO 800 film.

While the sun is high, however, is another thing. You can use a ISO 100 film and you’ll get great photos. I took the pictures below with an expired Fujifilm!

The waterproof plastic case makes pictures look less sharp, as if they were paintings. Here are some pictures I shoot far from the water and without the case. In some of them I used 400 ISO film.

You can see more pictures in this album or at my LomoHome.

written by monamarques on 2012-01-17 #gear #expired-film #fujifilm #aquapix #expired #underwater #review #user-review #lomography