Oct 17 2009

Cosina CX7

cosinacx7_medThere is plenty of information on the Internet regarding the Cosina CX-2 or it’s copy the LOMO LC-A but there are other cameras in this series that came later.  The CX7 came out in 1983 and is a very basic 35mm point and shoot without any manual overrides (well unless you want to change the film ASA setting to achieve +-1 stops with 200 ASA film.  It has a lens design with 4 elements in three groups and an unusual focal length of 33mm and a maximum aperture of f3.5  (this is likely the same lens as the CX-1 as it has the same specifications).  As far as operation there isn’t much to say, the film loads easily as it has a small sprung catch that hooks a film sprocket automatically and the film advances with a thumb wheel.   The lens has a fair amount of vignetting and you really can’t say what f stop it has chosen so focus and depth of field are somewhat difficult to predict as shown by the picture of the Rubik’s cube.  While it does have  two LED indicators for short or far distance you can’t know how far or short that is,  and it won’t be very short either as it’s minimum focus distance is 1.2M.  So all in all it is an uncomplicated  camera to use, with a decent lens but is best used when a little bit of randomness is welcome.