I backed the Kickstarter project for the Lomo’Instant earlier this year and was thrilled to receive it last week. I love how the camera naturally encourages you to experiment with its different features, whether it’s through flashing your multiple exposures with different colors or trying different creative techniques after your shots has been ejected. Here are a few tips from what I’ve discovered from playing with the camera so far (and a couple of tips I want to try out in future)!

Scratching Your Shots

Once I tried scratching patterns into my Lomo'Instant snaps using a fork. This created some interesting effects (you need to scratch as soon as the film ejects for this)…

My Basic MX Tip

I’m sure a lot of you know this one already – But when shooting multiple exposures it’s good to always shoot one exposure on a darker background. If you shoot two exposures on lighter backgrounds, it’s difficult for them to both show through. So shooting one exposure on a darker background helps to get a nice balance between the two exposures.

The 3D MX Effect

Here is another multiple exposure technique with the Lomo'Instant I tried out. I shot one exposure using the red color filter and then one exposure using the blue color filter. And I tried to shoot the two frames as similar as possible. The result is photos which feel strangely 3D!

Light Painting Practice

I’d be the first to admit that I’m no light painting master (please take a look at these shots from Lomography Hong Kong and these from Lomography France if you are looking for better examples). But one thing I love about the Lomo’Instant is (duh) you get your results in an instant! So this is really useful for people like me who are still learning about long exposures and light painting. Since you can see how your shots are turning out quickly and learn from the mistakes you make.

One for the Future: Grunge It Up

I really like the clean look of the shots I get with the Lomo’Instant. But sometimes I can imagine wanting a more vintage feel or dirty look to my shots. That’s why I’m really looking forward to trying this fun ‘peel effect’ way to display some of my Lomo’Instants in photo albums in the future. And I’m also really looking forward to trying out this old-school tipster to get dirty kinds of marks on my instant photos. Who wants every instant to be perfect anyway!

written by tomas_bates on 2014-11-12 #gear #tutorials #tipster #lomo-instant #lomo-instant #lomoinstant