The Frogeye

Just like a frog, the Frogeye is an amphibian. Unlike a frog, the Frogeye feels comfortable in snow and sand too. May it be canoeing, splashing, or tobogganing, here is the right camera for all sandy, snowy, and wet activities.

The Frogeye by itself is not a special camera. There is no over-saturation, no heavy vignetting like with the LC-A, the Frogeye can´t handle 120 films like the Holga or Diana, it doesn´t come with a fisheye lens, no “B” setting, everything automatic, quite boring. Actually, and here comes the big and properly expected “but.”

What makes the Frogeye so special is that it is really waterproof. Even to saltwater. Or frozen water (that is, frankly, snow). The Frogeye doesn’t care about sand too. That’s the incarnation of the “Take your camera everywhere” rule. You don´t need to worry weather your precious equipment gets wet or sandy. Dive into the water, into the snow, onto the beach. Visit some rain forest. Take a shower with the Frogeye, have a bath with it, jump into a pool, take it canoeing.

The Frogeye sports a pretty wide 27mm Fixed Focus lens, perfect for those hip shots. Film-transport and rewinding is done by a motor drive. Exposure is fully automatic too. Even setting the film sensitivity is automatic via DX Code, which is annoying because it only works with ISO 100 and ISO 400 films. ISO 200 Films seem to work nonetheless due to their high exposure margin.

After all the joy excels the pain when taking the Frogeye for a swim. Dried saltwater on the lens makes a nice soft focus filter too.

Sadly, the Frogeye’s production was discontinued, so grab one when you find it!

written by zark on 2011-06-08 #gear #underwater #review #see #strand #lomography #zark #schnee #meer #unterwasser #user-review #paddeln #kanu #wasserdicht