Overview

The Lomographic Society International is thrilled to introduce the Lubitel 166+, a loving recreation of this Soviet-era classic. Based on a design that dates back over 60 years, it’s truly a mid-century masterpiece updated with stunning new features, including the ability to shoot BOTH medium format and 35mm film. Light enough to be your daily companion, powerful enough to yield mind-blowingly sharp & detailed images, and flexible enough to offer limitless creative possibilities, this handsome fella is simply the biggest news for die-hard analogue photographers in a LONG time.

LUBITEL+ IS FOR LOVERS  It’s something about that plastic body. Something about peering down through that waist-level finder. Sizing up your subject with the top lens and capturing it through crispy glass lens with the bottom. It’s simply irresistible to people who love and adore life. People who are open-minded, enthusiastic, free with their ideas, philanthropic, endlessly curious, always travelling, constantly documenting, and completely awestruck by the enduring power of analog photographs. In other words – people like you!

Shooting with the Lubitel+ is different than anything you have shot before. The combination of its glass lenses, the flexible 120 or 35mm format, fully manual everything, fully automatic nothing, peering into a waist-level finder, slowing things down with focusing and dialing in the correct exposure settings, and a myriad of other analog factors make it a full-bodied experience that activates all of your senses and brings you into a special and very intimate place.

Lubitel+ pictures have their very own look and special analog character. They’re more “professional” than any 35mm camera, but less professional than a Hasselblad. Of course they are sharp, crispy, artistic, painted with light, and grand. But they’re also occasionally random, sometimes too vibrant, often vignetted at the edges, and totally flexible to your wishes and innovative tinkering. Rather than reflecting the objective reality in front of you, they reflect the subjective reality of the Lomographer behind the camera. They will make you look twice.

THE LUBITEL GLASS LENS  This is quite literally the beating heart of every Lubitel camera – and is directly responsible for the signature “Lubitel Look” – of tack-sharp, contrasty, colorful, and soulful images. Like the original, the Lubitel+ features a multicoated glass lens that delivers all of these famous effects.

PLASTIC BODY  The original Lubitel was cast in plastic to (1) keep the price affordable and (2) allow this “amateur” camera to be easily carried around by eager tourists and photography students. This nod to frugality gave the Lubitel one of its most important distinctions: it’s one of the world’s only truly portable and lightweight pro-quality 120 cameras. Carry a Rolleiflex around all day, and you’re in for one hell of a sore neck. With the Lubitel, you can carry it day in and day out with nary a care.

MANUAL CONTROLS  Things are wide open. For every shot, you can choose your own aperture, shutter speed, and focus. This is truly “auto-nothing.” This affords you total control over everything that happens. Want to blur a moving subject? Want to take a shallow depth-of-field portrait? No problemo. And for you greenhorns, working your way around a manual muchacho like the Lubitel+ is a great way to learn the basics of proper photography exposures.

TOP DOWN VIEWER  The Lubitel+’s viewfinder is on the top of the camera and enclosed by a pop-up metal hood. You compose your image by peering down into this and adjusting the focus knob. This has the triple bonus of (1) making your composition & shooting a bit slower and more thoughtful, (2) giving you a large surface to compose your image on (rather than a tiny viewfinder), and (3) allowing you to shoot all sorts of candid shots. When you’re staring at your feet, most folks don’t even realize you’re pointing the camera at them.

STANDARD CABLE RELEASE & TRIPOD THREAD  Long exposures are a treasured commodity by Lomographers. But an unsteady camera can lead to shaky, blurry pics. To that end, the Lubitel+ accepts a standard cable release – allowing you to open the shutter without any danger of shaking the camera with your itchy shutter finger. Pair it with a tripod (screwed into its handy tripod thread) for extra stability.

35MM FORMAT  As detailed in the Film Formats section, you can easily convert your Lubitel+ into a 35mm machine with the included “Lubikin” set – allowing you to snap vertical panoramic images with exposed sprocket holes. Oh yes!

ENDLESS PANORAMA FORMAT  Just like with the Diana F+, you can shoot an endless stream of images with no space between frames – thereby crafting a uniquely analog panoramic image which can stress the entire length of your film!

IMPROVED VIEWFINDER  The Lubitel+’s viewfinder glass is perfectly flat ground glass and covers 100% of the image. The original viewfinder used curved glass, was a bit tough to see in any angle other than head-on, and only covered 80% of the image.

CLOSER FOCUS  The Lubitel+ lens focuses to 0.8m, while the classic Lubitel lens only focused to 1.4m. This means stronger and more intense portraits and close-up shots!

ZONE FOCUS (JUST LIKE THE LC-A+!)  The Lubitel+ features a easy zone focus mode which snaps to the familiar LC-A+ distance settings of 0.8m, 1.5m, 3m, and infinity (allowing you to truly “be fast”).

ON-CAMERA EXPOSURE GUIDES  Setting the manual exposure of the Lubitel just got a lot easier with the help of two handy exposure guides (one aperture-priority, one shutter-priority) printed right onto your camera.

STANDARD HOTSHOE  Sync any standard hotshoe flash – including the Colorsplash flash or Diana Flash – perfectly with your camera.

REWIND YOUR 120 ROLLS  With the Lubitel+, you can rewind your film before the end of the roll. This allows you to trade film rolls with a mate rewind to a past frame and shoot on it again. This is one of the only medium format cameras in the world that can do this!

INTERCHANGEABLE BACK AND VIEWFINDER  Consider these a little “investment in the future.” The camera back can be removed – which will come in handy for some top-secret interchangeable backs coming down the pipeline. Likewise, the waist-level viewfinder can be removed so that a different style of viewfinder – or another focusing glass – can be put in its place. Stay tuned, as these two features will shortly become invaluable extensions of your Lubitel+’s abilities!