I'm the first to admit that years ago, I was once a member of the toy camera bandwagon. I fell in love with the spotty metering and the dubious glass and went everywhere with my LOMO LC-As. Eventually, my love for it disappeared as more people were interested and it finally got on my last nerve when it became accepted and ubiquitous enough for photography students to include their toy camera work in their entrance portfolios. The newly rediscovered Golden Half camera by SuperHeadz, however, might just bring the fun and irreverence back to the toy camera community.
The Golden Half shoots two vertically oriented shots on one 35mm film frame, essentially turning a 36-shot roll into one that produces 72. Unlike similar cameras like LOMO's ActionSampler and POP9, the two shots are not exposed at the same time, thus allowing users to easily create photographic diptychs on the same frame. From the looks of it, the resulting images are surprisingly crisp. It's not anywhere Leica glass, but it doesn't aspire to be.
The shutter speed is set at 1/100 and the only two available aperture choices are f8 and f11, so make sure you have a lot of light. If you're not the outdoorsy type, the camera also comes with a hotshoe, a feature that no other 35mm toy camera has besides the LOMO LC-A+ which comes at a lofty $250 price tag. Fun and unpretentious, the Golden Half is a steal at $80. You can see a sample image taken by the camera below, with more to be found at the Golden Half flickr pool.
