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Lubitel 166 UniversalI originally posted this review to rec.photo.equipment.medium-format in September, 1998. I've added comments to the end. I bought my Lubitel 166 Universal for $39.95 from Freestyle Sales Company in California. Their Toy Camera Page proclaims, "Amazing optics for the price!" but that's not saying much when you consider that brand new, the camera is half the price of some beat-up, 20-year-old models from other manufacturers. My first thought upon taking it out of its box was that it seemed to be reasonably well made. Make no mistake, this camera is not going to be the cause of any lost sleep at Hasselblad or Mamiya, but the glass was clean and clear, and the back fit snugly, and there wasn't a lot of play in the controls. The body is solid plastic, but doesn't bend or flex, even when the back is open. The camera is basically a 6x6 camera, but you can shoot 6x4.5 on it by inserting a black plastic mask just in front of the film plane. There is a little red window on the back of the camera which can be adjusted to expose the frame numbers for either 6x6 or 6x4.5, which are printed in separate columns on the paper backing. To load the camera, you open the back and insert the 120 film spool in its space at the bottom of the camera. A metal spring holds it in place. Then you pull out the paper backing, attach it to the take-up spool, and turn the film advance knob a couple of times, enough so that the paper doesn't slip off the spool. Then close the back, and while peering through the red frame counter window, advance the film until frame number 1 appears in the window. Piece of pie. From here on, the sequence of operation is focus, compose, set shutter and aperture, cock shutter, expose, and advance the film until the next frame number appears in the window. It's good to get in the habit of advancing the film after each exposure. If you're really miserly (and there's a good chance of that, given your choice of camera), you could probably bum a 13th exposure out of a 120 roll through careful use of the manual film advance. The viewfinder surprised me. Ground glass must be a precious commodity in Russia, because they only give you a little spot of it in the center of the viewfinder. The rest of the viewfinder is a clear lens, like the viewfinder of a point-and-shoot. The boundaries of the 6x4.5 frame are etched in the viewfinder glass. A flip-up magnifier magnifies the ground glass spot and makes focusing almost possible. Using the viewfinder is tricky. First of all, you must look at the viewfinder straight-on, which is impossible to do with both eyes simultaneously, so you have to keep one closed at all times. You can attempt to focus with the ground glass magnifier or just set an approximate distance on the distance scale. It's okay if you don't focus very precisely, because as you will soon discover, you don't want to shoot this camera at anything wider than f/16 if you can possibly avoid it. Once you've focused, you have to move at least a foot away from the viewfinder to compose the shot, because the viewfinder image loses its corners when viewed from a closer distance. The camera also offers a nifty "sports" finder. The camera even comes with a plastic insert that masks the sports finder for the 6x4.5 format. The sports finder is a lot faster to use than the viewfinder, but focusing is even more haphazard, since you can't even see the distance scale, and you can forget about composition; just plant your subject in the center of the viewfinder and pray. I do not recommend this camera for sports photography. Needless to say, the Lubitel does not offer a TTL meter. You can use a hand-held meter, the sunny f/16 rule, or just guess. Shutter speeds from 1/15 to 1/250 plus bulb are available. If you have the camera on a tripod, you can just set 1/15 and trip the shutter a few times to get 1/8 and 1/4; 1/2 and up are probably manageable on bulb, and the camera comes with a cable release. Apertures range from f/4.5 to f/22. Both the shutter speed and aperture selectors are analog, so 1/2-stop, 1/3-stop, and 1/n-stop adjustments are possible. You can stop the lens down quite a bit past f/22, so f/32 and maybe even f/45 are within reach, assuming that the f/22 marking is accurate in the first place. It is also possible to set a shutter speed perhaps 1/2 stop slower than 1/15. With a camera of this nature, it is necessary to point it at your favorite test chart or brick wall and map out its behavior. My favorite brick wall is, coincidentally, the one located closest to my apartment, and it has now been immortalized on a roll of Velvia. At all apertures, the center of the frame is very sharp; I am able to clearly see the texture of the brick and mortar. At f/4.5, the image becomes noticably fuzzy even halfway to the edge, and is horrendous at the corners. Things aren't any better at f/5.6. There is improvement through f/22, at which the image is quite sharp all the way to the edge, even when viewed with a 4X loupe. I didn't try any apertures past f/22. The light falloff at the corners is noticable, but the camera isn't anywhere as near as bad as the Holga, which produces circular pictures. The 1/250 shutter speed on my Lubitel seems to be about a half or even a whole stop fast; both the 1/250 frames I shot are noticably dark. The other speeds were in the ballpark. The film shows no evidence whatsoever of light leaks in the camera. My conclusion is that it is easily possible to take good pictures with the Lubitel. I once used a Hasselblad 500C which produced fuzzier negatives and leaked far more light than this camera (at least at f/22). If you have $50 to spend on a camera for school or just to play with, and you have the choice between a brand-new Lubitel and a junky, secondhand 35mm of some kind, my advice is to go with the Lubitel and buy some film with the money you have left over. Even if you already have a medium format camera (as I do, a Bronica SQ-Ai), the Lubitel is fun to have around. 1999 UpdateI gave my original Lubitel to Marysia along with a brick of XP2 (non-Super) that I picked up at KJP. She had expressed an interest in doing some black and white photography, so I thought that she'd like it. She has managed to shoot quite a few good photos without any meter at all. If she sends me some, I'll certainly post them here. Freestyle isn't selling the Lubitel anymore, unfortunately. I bought another one from a gentleman who drop-shipped it from Lithuania. This one cost about $80 so I guess they're in demand! All contents copyright 1999 by Willis BoyceLast updated November 19, 2001 |