Now as I think you could tell from my feed I love me a bit of photogrpahy. I also like myself some Lego, (although I have to admit there hasn't been too much building of late, and certainly no Lego based posts on HIVE) so it's not surprising that my nieces decided to buy me the Lego Set 'Retro Camera' for my birthday (It's Set 31147 for those playing at home)
This is one of the amazing value, always well thought through 3:1 sets, which have instructions for two alternative builds in them
So after receiving it on the weekend, on Tuesday night I decided to sit down a make it (this was pre the final of Lego Masters so it seemed appropriate) I had announced this plan to my partner, so unsurprisingly she turned up from work with her own set to build so she would have something to do - The pretty cool Retro Roller Skate set.
We have made a deal that we will swap in a few weeks to build the second model from each set, she has her eyes on the Camcorder and I like the beatbox. Hopefully I'll tell you about this (I say two weeks it will likely be 6 months)
But onto the actual build - as always this is really well thought through, the scale is perfect. I've held a lot of cameras in my hand and this one even early in the build felt right in the hand. As is often the case the insides are all colourful (to give you more useful pieces rather than all black and grey)
Meanwhile on the other side of the table the rollerskates are coming along well:
What I do like about the camera are the details, the film door opens at the rear, the 'dials' on the top actually spin, there is a tension (using a rubber piece) in the film advance lever, just like a real camera and with you open the back door you make a 'Film' which fits in it, with pre taken pictures (you also make a second one for some reason) - By Coincidence one of the things you have taken a photo of is the roller skates
There are two things I'm not that enamored with. The strap is a little odd, I get it if you are a kid walking around with it but it doesn't feel Lego-y. And the Shutter button, it's on the Left. I've never had a camera with the shutter button on the left so that felt awkward. But also props for a viewfinder which works, you put this up to your eye and you can see through it to your subject.
And meanwhile over the other side of the table the Rollerskates have their big pink wheels. These end up a bit small, but they are cool none the less.
These sets are not really made for playing though, they are for putting on a shelf somewhere, so of course the logical place for them to live is next to a couple of actual retro cameras, My first serious camera, a Canon Ae-1 and my mother in law's Olympus Trip. And I think from a distance it's hard to tell which are Lego and which are real
