Old School, Yet Innovative.

Here at Action Camera, we’re always getting a steady flow of products that are new or at least new to us. Recently we had a camera in the store unlike any we had ever seen before. It was the “Lomography Sprocket Rocket”. Our initial reaction was, “That is quite an interesting name for such a cute little camera… but what does it do?” After a little bit of research, we learned that its a 35mm film camera with a massively wide angle lens that exposes 2 regular 35mm frames to make a panoramic exposure. That is pretty cool but doesn’t quite explain the name. We then learned there is a piece on this camera that is removable that makes it so, not only do you expose 2 frames at once, but you can also expose the sprocket holes on the film. “Now that’s something I’ve never seen before! We have to try it!”, exclaimed the eager Action Camera team!

So we loaded a roll, cranked it down and started shooting away. We had a blast! A photo of this. A photo of that. It was awesome! So when the roll was done, we anxiously sent it off to be developed. The next day when it returned to the store in the hands of our beloved Craig Moore, we all saw the doom coming with the sorrow in his eyes as he told us, “They’re awful…” Well, maybe not awful, but they were certainly not as we had anticipated. The frames seemed to be randomly scattered across the roll, several shots had blurred severely, and several were out of focus or had missed proper exposure. We were heartbroken, but not defeated! At long last, we turned to the instructions.

As it turns out the Sprocket Rocket has two shutter modes; (1/100th of a second) and (Bulb Mode which lets you leave the shutter open as long as the shutter button is pressed down), and two aperture settings; Sunny (f/16) and Cloudy (f/10.8). There is also a focusing control on the lens. On one end you have the closeup setting that is marked by a which is for subjects 0.6-1 meter away and the far focusing mode for anything farther than a meter marked by a .

Furthermore, when it comes to spacing out your frames there are two different frame indicators. One which reads a simple E, 1, 2, 3.. etc, which is intended for a single regular 35mm exposure, the other is for the spacing of the 2-frame panoramics which is just a single white dot on a wheel that rotates. Every time the white dot appears in the hole, you have advanced the film far enough to expose another panorama.

The Sprocket Rocket also has a very interesting feature which can make for some cool double exposures. In addition to advancing the film forward, you are also able to leave the current frame unmoved or rewind the film back to any frame on the roll you’ve already exposed.

So, finally, with everything we had learned and the faith of the team behind me, I set out once more with the Sprocket Rocket wound up and ready to shoot! I set forth to downtown Reno on a cloudy drizzly day. I set the shutter speed to 1/100th and the aperture to f/10.8 and began shooting.

Here are the images from that day.

Thank you for reading!

Be sure to stop into Action Camera and see what fun new products and projects we’ve got going!

http://www.actioncamera.com