The Okaya Optical Works Lord Martian is a very cool looking camera (and name!), so once it was brought back to life, no time was wasted loading up some Ilford HP5 to test it.

To be honest it is not the best shooter! The focus ring is a bit stiff and could do with a strip down and clean, but to test functionality I just left it as it was. Another annoying thing was the ‘Eveready case’ - which was not ever ready! It is too tight around the lens and doesn’t open very easily. This little thing was just so irritating, the case would pull off the lens cap and drop it on the floor on more than one occasion!

Anyway - enough moaning, onto the images…

Aside from the annoyances it does produce some really good images! Obviously helped by the peak conditions for HP5 (a foggy landscape).

I was pleasantly surprised when the scans came through from the Lab. This was partly down to forgetting what I had shot as it was many week later, and also as I didn’t really enjoy the shooting experience.

All of these were shot in January when the post Christmas blues were in full swing, the weather mainly flat grey, and no money to go on adventures! All these compositions are within a few miles from home.

The Martian is a wonderful camera design, and makes great images, but in terms of the competition from the likes of Petri, etc - it kind of falls short in terms of usability. To be fair if I sort out the stiff focus and don’t use the case, it would be a better experience - but still is wasn’t a particularly inspiring camera - hence why half way through the roll, the film was swapped into the Canon EX EE!

HP5 part 1 - Lord Martian

HP5 part 2 - Canon EX EE