Surprise! I started using my Lubitel Universal again!

A few months ago I started looking into Medium Format cameras and nearly bought one, but figured why do that when I don’t even use the Lubitel I have? I thought about selling it and even put it on Facebook Marketplace and had a lot of interest, which actually made me excited about the camera again. I dug it up out of the camera drawer under my bed and started shooting it! I shot almost 2 full rolls of expired Kodak Ektar 100 at Crystal Castle and I think the photos turned out gorgeous. It made me so excited to be shooting with this camera again – it’s definitely had a learning curve, and been a long couple of years to get me finally excited about shooting it, but now I want to keep going!

As you can see I got a couple of cool light leaks which weren’t very surprising as the camera back is a little loose. After how badly previous rolls have turned out using the Lubitel, I think I finally understand how focusing, aperture, and shutter speed work on this camera and am so grateful that the photos turned out so nice straight out of the camera.

Can’t wait to finish the next roll!

Back in 2014 I purchased my first medium format camera – a Lubitel Universal. It was about $60 on eBay and for some reason I was really nervous to use it because I was not confident in my ability to focus or to set the correct settings for each shot. Surprisingly, the results were so much better than I had anticipated! I love when that happens because sometimes you are completely disappointed by a roll – even though the shots I took weren’t very interesting, I am now confident enough to take the camera out and to use it in various other settings and hopefully capture some fun shots.

Let me know your favourite 120 film in the comments below. I used Lomography Earl Grey 100 for these shots.