plastikcam.com       Diana F+ Lenses

Here are the different Diana lenses and their finders. I made photos on Instax film for each lens and on small format film so that you can have an idea about the image it geves.

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The first thing to do is to get the standard lens off the camera.

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Lens in locked position, dot on the lens matches the lower dot on the camera.

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Lens unlocked. You have to grip the front part of the lens firmly and turn. It sometimes needs quite some force to do so.

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Lens off.

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20mm fisheye lens, instructions sheet and viewer.

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Caps off.

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Camera and 20mm fisheye lens. According to my tests on a Sony A7 it seems to be a little bit longer. 20mm would be 11mm small format fisheye equivalent.

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You also need the accessory viewer holder. (see 55mm lens).

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Rear view.

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20mm fisheye, "cloudy" setting (F8), normal (1/60s), full fisheye effect, good sharpness. On 42x42mm film the edges would be better.

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20mm fisheye on 35mm film, "cloudy" setting (F8), normal (1/60s), a super wide anhle with some distortion.

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38mm lens and instructions sheet.

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Caps off.

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Camera and 38mm super wide lens. 38mm would be 21mm super wide equivalent.

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You also need the accessory viewer holder and the viewer for the 55mm lens. (see 55mm lens). Instead of the luminous 55mm frame, it's approx. the whole visible area.

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38mm super wide, F8, 1/60s, sharpness o.k.

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38mm super wide on 35mm film, F8, 1/60s, sharpness just o.k., a bit of colour cast.

As the 38mm is my favorite lens, one more photo at short distance:

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38mm, 2m setting, flash, F8, 1/60s, sharp image, a little bit of vignetting from the flash due to wide angle lens.

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55mm wide lens, close-up attachment, viewer, viewer holder and instructions sheet.

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Caps off.

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Camera and 55mm wide lens. According to my tests on a Sony A7 it seems to be a little bit longer. 55mm would be 30mm small format wide equivalent.

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The viewer has bright frame lines.

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Rear view.

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55mm wide, F8, 1/60s, sharpness o.k., a hint of colour cast, a bit of vignetting to the left which would not appear on 120 film.

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55mm wide on 35mm film, F8, 1/60s, sharpness o.k., a hint of colour cast, shallow depth of field.

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The 55mm len comes with a close-up attachment.

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Close-up attachment on lens. According to Lomography the lens has to be set to infinity and will focus at a distance of 15 (!) cm approx. There is no framing aid, you have to judge.

Just for the record, here are the pictures taken with the 75mm standard lens (see Diana main page):

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75mm standard, F8, 1/60s, good sharpness.

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75mm standard on 35mm film, F8, 1/60s, good sharpness.

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110mm tele soft lens and instructions sheet.

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Caps off.

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Camera and 110mm soft lens. As the name says, it only produces soft images. According to my tests on a Sony A7 it seems to be longer. 110mm would be 60mm small format equivalent.

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Camera and telephoto lens.

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110mm soft telelens, F8, 1/60s, blurry or soft, as indicated, colour cast, vignetting.

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110mm soft telelens on 35mm film, F8, 1/60s, hazy or soft, as indicated, heavy colour cast.

There are adapters to be able to use the diana lenses an small format SLR cameras. I came across the Canon model.

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The adapter and a Diana lens.

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The adapter unpacked.

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Adapter and lens.

I tried all the lenses on a Sony A7 camera via a Canon adapter which worked well with Canon lenses. It was an enormous deception. Most of the lenses don't focus at all. Obviously the focal length of the adapter is not right. I also tried on a Canon camera with the same negative results. The second problem is the missing diaphragm. Ordinary lenses have a diaphragm, a Diana has the diaphragm on the body. The adapter hole is bigger than the largest F-stop. There should be a diaphragm in the adapter. Maybe I will try a DIY solution later. The 75mm standard lens pictures show that there are nice capabilities of portrait pictures with a wonderful bokeh. If you want to see the pictures of my tests, they are here. The link will open in a new window.

There is a lot of discussion on the web how to judge the correct exposure for each lens. As the diaphragm is on the body, it's the same diameter for all the lenses. But shorter lenses bring much more light than longer ones unless the longer ones have enormous lenses to collect the light, which isn't the case on the Diana. As I mentioned, I don't calculate, I guess roughly and shoot.

But if you want to have an idea about this problem, I found the following guesses about the exposure value equivalents:

110mm Soft Focus Telephoto Lens - ƒ/22, ƒ/32, ƒ/44, and ƒ/500
75mm Standard Lens - ƒ/11, ƒ/16, ƒ/22, ƒ/250
55mm Wide-Angle Lens - ƒ/8, ƒ/12, ƒ/16, ƒ/183
38mm Super Wide-Angle Lens - ƒ/6, ƒ/8, ƒ/11, ƒ/126
20mm Fish Eye Lens - ƒ/3, ƒ/4, ƒ/6, ƒ/67

Anyway: have fun to explore the lenses!

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