A photo of Catch 32 performing at the Swinging Arm in Birkenhead

A photo of Catch 32 performing at the Swinging Arm in Birkenhead

A photo of Catch 32 performing at the Swinging Arm in Birkenhead

A photo of Catch 32 performing at the Swinging Arm in Birkenhead

A photo of Catch 32 performing at the Swinging Arm in Birkenhead

The Seagull 205a is a fixed lens 35mm rangefinder produced in the mid to late 1970′s in the Peoples Republic of China at the original Seagull factory in Shanghai. It is a fully manual camera with no automation at all, and doesn’t have a light meter built in, meaning that for accurate exposure one needs skill at judging lighting conditions and appropriate settings, or an external lightmeter.

The lens is a Haiou-45, which has a focal length 38mm with a maximum aperture of f2.8, it produces very sharp and contrasty images, it also produces highly saturated colour in images taken with the camera.

The LOMO LC-A is a 35mm compact automatic camera manufactured in St. Petersburg from the early 1980s up until production ceased in 2005, to take a well exposed picture all you need to do is press the shutter release and wait for the camera to click twice, the images it takes have a certain dreamlike quality to them, thanks in part to the long shutter times it uses when light levels are low, it can produce extremely long exposures if there is very little light, and it responds instantly to changing light conditions, making it amazing in nightclubs where strobe lights produce spectacular effects.

The lens also contributes to the dreamlike quality of the images produced by the LOMO Kompakt Automat, the lens is a 32mm “Minitar 1″ f/2.8 lens which produces spectacularly colourful and highly saturated images and is a true gem of the lens designers craft.