It was the early 1960s. Mini skirts were swinging into fashion, and Beatlemania was taking the world by storm. In a small manufactory in Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong, engineers were knocking together a little camera that would change the face of photography forever.
The Diana camera was the very definition of lo-fi. It had a plastic lens that produced brilliantly blurry edges and super-soft vignetting, and flimsy housing that led to light leaks and watermarks. Each shot was unpredictable, drenched in gorgeous analogue imperfections. Its unique beauty catapulted it to stardom, with professional photographer Mark Sink using it to snap Jean-Michel Basquiat, Grace Jones and even the inimitable Andy Warhol.
You know what they say, though – nothing lasts forever – and in the late 1970s the production of the Diana slowed and eventually ceased. Nonetheless, the unlikely charm of this 1960s lo-fi beauty lived on. When we got our hands on one back in the early 2000s, we couldn’t believe our luck. Blown away by the mesmerizing images it produced, we got to work on a brand new version. In 2007, we added the Diana F+ to our ever-expanding collection of creative cameras.
We kept the strong, saturated colors and soft, moody vignetting that had us head over heels for the original, and added a touch of Lomographic love – Bulb Mode for long exposures, Multiple Exposure Mode for lush, layered effects, pinhole functionality for lens-free experiments. Now, this unmatchable aesthetic can be archived across 35 mm, 120, 110 and instant photography.
