Diana+ lomography camera overview

Merry Christmas to you all, and I hope you have a great new year! I had a very good Christmas, I got amazing presents and spent it with my family and friends. I'm leaving later tonight to visit Mons, Belgium to see my sister and her family. I thought I'd bid you farewell until after the new year by leaving you with one very exciting post!

Now, I don't know about you but I love photography. Despite only having owned one camera before in my entire life, I've always had a passion for the more artsy low-fi shots that are captured on film cameras. My camera I've always used is actually digital, and no amount of my crappy editing skills could get them to look as I wanted. So, I researched online and found the Diana+. And lo and behold, here it sits in my unwise hands.

This is the dreamer edition from urban outfitters.

It's a completely plastic camera, and there are many different editions of it to collect. I brought this one for £50. The Diana was first produced in the 1960's as a toy camera, but never took off and so stopped being made. However, in 2007 lomography began to produce them again and here we are. 

It has a 75mm lens, with 3 different focus settings. You can twist the lens and pop it off, allowing you to take pinhole shots (you have to change the setting on the underside of the 'lens') or to use one of the different lenses such as wide-angle and fish-eye available from lomography.com.  I personally want to try these, as they offer a lot of variety and alternation between the different sort of photos you can take and the effects you can give.  The shutter button is on the side of the lens (left hand side below the finger in the photo) and you simply pull it down and hold it for as long as you'd like the exposure to be. 

Underneath on the underside of the lens, there are 4 different settings: cloudy, semi-cloudy, sunny and pinhole to let the lens allow different amounts of light in. 

On-top of the lens to the right of the shutter, there is a B or N setting. N is for normal daytime, and B is for low-light or night time. 

On the back of the camera, there is a small section to decide whether you want to use 16 small shots, or 12 large panorama shots in a roll. This can be changed after the roll is finished. The camera has a textured effect. You also have the viewfinder at the top, although it's fairly inaccurate. On the bottom of the camera you have a lock or unlock switch, which allows you to slide the back off or lock it into place. There's also a hole for a tripod to screw into. You can also buy the 35mm film back and the instant-back from lomography.

The camera (the dreamer model I have) comes with a white plastic neck strap, which is a bit cheap and nasty looking so I'm tempted to cut it off and invest in a prettier one later on. It also comes with a shutter holder clip, so if you're doing a long exposure photo you don't have to hold it down as it can become harder the longer you hold it for. I've yet to work out how that works! It's capable of  having a flash too, and there's a two prong hole for it to slot into. 

Overall, I am in love with this camera. Yes, I brought the wrong film so it's probably gonna be black and not working. Yes, it took me about 2 hours to work out what to do. And yes, it's plastic. But, that is what makes it great. 

I hope you enjoyed this review. Please comment if  you'd like to see more ( way more interesting!) posts about my Diana and film photography. Thanks for reading and stay safe at new years.

NOTD - Deborah Lipmann's razzle dazzle!

As I expect many of you will know, in the recent glossybox there was mini size of the Deborah Lipmann polish razzle dazzle. Not only did I actually squeal when I got this, I quickly took of my hour old polish and painted this on. And boy, am I glad I did.

In the bottle, this polish looks gorgeous. It looks like a vampy wine base, with lots and lots of raspberry glitter. The Lipmann polishes are most famous for the glitter ones, and this really lives up to the good name.  It photographs well in the bottle too, but not so well on the nail. In real life however, it is much more spectacular and 'interesting' than it seems here.

This photo is a little so-so. It doesn't show it as pretty as I'd like it too, but the pointer (index?) finger is most accurate. It is a very dark base, almost so dark you don't notice the glitter until your in the light and then the glitter will shine and you'll finally notice it. I like that glossybox decided to include this as it's more unusual and deeper then the generic glitters. This photo is with flash in dim(ish) lighting.




This photo is without flash. You can see it's not as shimmery as it looks above. It is a very pretty polish, and I'm contemplating wearing this on Christmas instead of China Glaze's ring in the red (http://vanillasand01.blogspot.com/2011/11/notd-china-glaze-ring-in-red.html my blog post about it) but I'm not sure yet!




As always, thank you so much for reading and all your comments.
Would you wear this, or did you receive it ?

Favourite youtuber of the month! Fashionrocksmysocks

I thought since I'd started up my blogging again, I'd start a new series about the favourite people I enjoy watching on YouTube. I do have an account, but I tend not to post as I have more of a passion for blogging so I use my account to keep up to date with the people I really enjoy watching!

So for my first month, I have chosen a girl called Rhiannon, otherwise known as fashionrocksmysocks.
http://www.youtube.com/user/FashionRocksMySocks

She is so genuine and does fantastic videos. She study's fashion and has an amazing fashion sense with a bit of individuality, but she isn't selfish about her style ideas. Alot of people with a great idea tend to try and keep it to there selves, whereas she does great DIY videos about how to create your own items.

I find her as a person a little less mainstream, and a little more quirky which I absolutely love in a person and style.  My favourite video of hers is her shoe collection (I love her style and I'm generally a shoe person) and also I get to ogle her beautiful tattoo.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbfYgDFHXnk&feature=plcp&context=C34a7423UDOEgsToPDskIgoceu7w19TqM2R2Ym3ZJj
I also love how she always wears her scarves as hair bands, and she inspires me in a lot of how I style my clothes.

Thankyou for reading and please comment if you like this idea for a series, or if you also enjoy Rhiannon's channel!

December Glossybox 2011

So, I'm a little late on the bandwagon for glossybox. I'm always late posting, and this time isn't an exception. I initially missed the delivery of my box, so I had to get it redelivered on Wednesday. However, everyone's contents were different so I thought I might as well still post what I received. This post will be a little photo-heavy, so i'm sorry about that. Enjoy!

This month the glossy box was a shiny red, with the white paper squiggles inside. I loved this, and it made the whole thing seem a lot more festive then if it had been in the original packaging.

 It's very pretty! I was pleased that when I opened it, it looked pretty full. I love opening packages anyway, so a full one makes it even better! Naturally, I went for the biggest product I could see first, which was the rituals Yogi Flow foaming shower gel.

This is full size (200ml at £6.50.) It smells lovely, a not too overpowering sweet floral,  and also foams really well. I like that it isn't too expensive either, because if I do love it I can go and buy it without feeling too guilty.  I do like luxurious samples, but I'm not a huge spender on more bath and body products compared to skin care or nail polish, so this was a bonus for me.

I would say do be careful when using the nozzle. I tried to squirt some onto my hand, and it shot all over my carpet! A little goes a long way too as it is very creamy and rich (similar to a gel shaving cream!), so this should last quite a long time. From what I could see from my subscription to other bloggers, everyone got this gel. Next, I opened the nouveau lashes noir mascara. No other blogger that I'm subscribed to received this, the majority it seems, got the blink & go palette, or mascara. I admit I did look at others posts before I received my glossybox, and I was hoping to get the palette. However, after recieving this mascara i've got to say I would rather have this as I suspect the palette would've got thrown to the back of my draw never to be seen again! 

It came in this cute box, and it is very nicely packaged. The sleek black tube is quite heavy, although not overly so, just enough to give it that 'expensive' feel. It's full sized (8g) and retails for £14.99.

The brush seems quite good, thick and not too much product gathers on it. I haven't used it yet, but expect a review soon. I was in need of a new mascara, and hopefully this fits the bill!

Next is the F-A-B beauty's face cleanser. I admit I would've preferred the face base from mememe, as I have sensitive skin with acne and the face products from glossybox or that i've brought myself never seem to work for me. However, it does say on the front it removes makeup so I will give it a go. It doesn't have any scent, so I don't think it would irritate many skin types. It says it contains no parabens, harsh chemicals or colorants.  It's a sample size at 28.3g, the full size (141g) retails at £13.00.

Next is the mini cargo lip gloss in the shade Las Vegas. It is perfect for me, super sheer with just a hint of pinky-peach with lots of golden sparkle. I think I'm going to wear this on Christmas for just a hint of sparkle, as I'm not a huge fan of colours on my lips (I love them on other people but it looks ridiculous on me!). It's not sticky at all so I'm not sure how long it will last on the lips, but the colour isn't crazy so it shouldn't take too much effort to apply. This is 0.45g and the full size retails at £10.00. I couldn't find how much the full size contains anywhere.

Badly swatched, it's basically a pale pink with lots of pretty sparkle!

Lastly, the real gem of this box was a mini Deborah Lipmann polish in razzle dazzle with 1 stripper to go nail remover mitt. I was so excited about this because I've never tried a polish from Deborah Lipmann, and this colour is perfect for the holiday season. It's a dark wine coloured base, with lots of raspberry small glitters. It is gorgeous! This photo is pretty true to life. I'm not sure if I'd like the base on it's own as a colour, but paired with the glitter it's phenomenal! The little glass bottle is very cute too, and you get 9ml of product. The full size is £16, so I am very happy with this little one!

Lastly, there is the Deborah Lipmann stripper to go lavender nail lacquer remover finger mitts. I have never tried these, but they are allegedly supposed to help remove glitter polishes easily, and these particular ones are supposed to be used with the notorious Lipmann polishes (hard to remove!) You get 1 mitt, and for the full size (6 mitts) it is £14. I wouldn't pay this much for nail remover personally, but they're a nice luxurious treat to go with the polish.




Overall, I am really impressed with this months glossybox and am glad I continued with my subscription after the fairly average November box (hence no blog about it!) I hope you enjoyed reading this, and please comment any ideas for new posts! Thanks for reading