Young Generation

Thanks to the wonder of eBay I have recently taken delivery of a 30-yr old camera from the old Soviet Republic. This Smena 8M was developed by the same scientists as the more famous Lomo LCA, and it features the same cheap plastic lens. Hence, the camera produces heavily saturated colours which have become very fashionable. The Smena was developed as a cheap way for the masses to get into photography, it is completely manual and doesn't need batteries. One of the quirks of this camera is the settings for focus - you can select a small head for a portrait, a group of people for, er, a group of people, or a tower block and a tree for landscapes. Clearly there weren't too many rolling hills outside the Smena laboratory. Incidentally, Smena is Russian for Young Generation. I like the fact that this defunct piece of kit is now getting used after languishing in a factory in the Ukraine.