Likea: The Cardboard Fake Leica
Posted in: Today's Chili
The Likea camera is like a Leica camera. Specifically, the Likea MPH is a stripped down version of Leica’s already frill-less MP rangefinder. How stripped down? Try these anti-specs:
No battery, no light meter, no mechanical shutter, no embellishment – just your eye, a lightproof box and the emulsion.
It is also $20, and made from cardboard. The MPH is in fact just a pinhole camera, although so sparsely equipped is the kit that it doesn’t even include the pinhole: you will have to cut your own from a soda-can. One thing it does share with every real Leica ever made is the sensor: it uses the exact-same 35mm film as the legendary German rangefinders have always used.
Loading this film isn’t quite as easy as it might seem. There is no mechanism, so you’ll need an old, empty film canister and a paper clip. Into these you will wind the exposed film one inaccurate frame at a time.
This kit looks like great fun, although you could just as easily make your own. There’s one other trick that you might like to play. A small digicam would slide inside this “replica” pretty easily, giving you a digital fake-Leica for just a few dollars.
Likea product page [Likea Camera via Leica Rumors]
See Also:
- The Cheap Russian Camera That Could: Lomo Turns 25
- Five Reasons Film Cameras Are Still Better Than Digital
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