Cosmic 35

Cosmic 35 – A Soviet Classic

This is a camera that was made in the LOMO factory in Leningrad (now St Petersburg) in the USSR about 50 years ago. I used to have one of these in my teens and it got passed down to a cousin, but a few years ago I picked up a mint example from ebay for £15.

It’s quirky in operation as the winding of film and shutter are two distinct operations so it is possible to take multiple exposures by accident if you forget to wind the film or indeed miss the exposure completely as pressing the shutter release with an uncocked shutter still allows the film to wind on another frame. My own discipline for dealing with this is to wind on the film as soon as the previous exposure is taken, but only cock the shutter just before taking the next exposure. One mistake to avoid is having your fingers too close to the shutter cocking lever. Any interruption to the movement of this will result in an extended exposure. One of the frames in the gallery exhibits this effect!

With no meter and no rangefinder everything you see here is pure guesswork. With a top speed of 1/250th and 400 speed film the aperture usually ends up down around f11 making focus less critical on the slightly wide 40mm lens and it’s easily set if you can guess distances.

This roll was shot in Larne during my lockdown exercise in March 2021 using Kentmere 400 film developed at home with Ilford chemicals. The fully mechanical operation of the camera and the chemical processing of the film means that no electricity was involved in the making of the negatives!

Review here at Lomography……..