Lomo MC-A review: an expensive and brand new "project camera"

Thu, Mar 19, 2026

To some extent it is my fault: I was first in line to buy this camera. I didn’t wait for reviews. I wanted to support the development of new film cameras and the brand seemed legitimate enough.

I should not have hurried: the Lomo MC-A is a mess. The rewind mechanism broke within 2 rolls and the overall experience feels cheap, especially given the price.

I held this initial review until I had a completed roll of film back from development, but I feel like I’m late to the party and just adding more complaints to the generous heap of criticism you can already find on Reddit and YouTube about this camera.

In my opinion, the reviewers on those sites aren’t being harsh enough.

Let’s get into it.

Unboxing the MC-A

First impression: the Lomo MC-A box is heavy, weird, and complicated. Every accessory is individually packaged inside little cardboard boxes that you have to pry open like a raccoon.

The large yellow slab is a hardcover book. Is the book useful? No.

It’s a weird compendium of company history, photos, and copy that I can only describe as “branding hype” (which feels completely wasted on someone who already made the purchase).

Topics not covered in this book:

• How to attach the wrist strap
• How to load film
• Why ISO 400 isn’t an option in the menu
• How to rewind film
• How to do literally ANYTHING with this camera

Here’s the manual:

I audibly gasped at the sight of this thing.

They shouldn’t have started us with a hardcover book and then followed it with this pathetic scrap.

At this point I started to wonder: is Lomography fucking with us? (Follow-up wondering: Why?)

Inside this flap of cardboard is a QR code, which you scan with your phone’s camera (you know, the camera you were hoping to use less often in favor of film).

You are then treated to the unforgettable experience of scrolling through 100 other Lomo manuals to find the MC-A’s manual somewhere in the middle.

This manual is lazy and off-putting. It’s not designed for viewing on mobile. The writing style sucks. The diagrams are lacking.

“Loading the film” merited no diagram and some smarmy-toned sentences reassuring you that it’s easy (I watched a YouTube video for guidance here).

This is about where my first wave of buyer’s remorse hit.

My primary film camera is a Canon from the 1970s. It is older than I am. The manual is still with it, and the manual is fantastic. You can read it like a book and it teaches you how the camera works.

This QR code won’t stand the test of time. It probably won’t even work by 2030.

I admit I am new to the Lomo brand - maybe this misguided use of resources is typical. I don’t need a fat book of photos other people took, but I do need a manual. They had the budget to print something and they wasted it. This was a cold welcome and I expected better for nearly $600. I hope Lomo rethinks this part of its strategy the next time they make a new camera.

Attaching the camera strap

No pennies could be spared for a page in the manual about the strap, but this is how I did mine: I put the leather piece around the metal strap loop on the camera’s body, then threaded the strap through the loop. The leather piece protects the camera body.

It wasn’t worth the trouble, though - the strap is very tight around my average-sized hand. They spent all their budget on that hardcover book and couldn’t afford another inch of material for the strap. (I later replaced the strap with this one from Amazon, which fits great)

The most hated text in the camera world

The inscription is corny and they plastered it on everything. By the time you see it on the camera, you’ve already read it on the box, the wrap, and the hype book. Once would have been sufficient.

I covered it with a sticker from my label maker that displays a more useful message.

Shooting some pics

The camera makes a mechanical WHIRRRR as it powers on. It’s an off-putting noise that startled me the first few times I turned the camera on.

The shooting experience is as expected. Point at the subject, take the picture. I shot my first roll on auto and didn’t try anything fancy with it.

Rewinding the film

This is where the camera really starts to fall apart for me, both figuratively and literally.

I ended up rewinding my first Lomo MC-A roll of film by hand in my bathroom with the lights off. Some of it was user error (I struggled to turn the crank in a way that also turned the film) and some of it was what I can only describe as a design flaw with the camera itself.

As I see it, by default, the rewind crank spins freely from the “arrow” disc. The film does not rewind. You might be tempted to look in the manual, but all you’ll get here is some fluff text:

I feel like a decent editor or test team would’ve removed all the worthless text that I crossed out (in red) and replaced it with the response I got from customer support, which was “the little pin on the lever has to grab into the groove”. This should be step 4 in the manual. (I ultimately rewound my first roll of film from the Lomo by hand in a bathroom that I hoped was dark enough.)

Here’s a pic showing how the “pin” goes into the “groove”:

April 2026 update: this part broke off completely while shooting my 2nd roll, solidifying my impression that this camera is flimsy junk.

First roll of pics from Lomo MC-A

I lost several shots to having left the lens cap on, and several more to a pretty aggressive light leak (which possibly occurred while re-spooling the film by hand) so I will shoot a couple more rolls before I judge the Lomo MC-A’s photo-taking qualities.

Overall, though, I think it did well. The vignetting is noticeable and seems to be part of the brand. I don’t mind it, but it also means I probably won’t take this camera to anything serious. The pics have a ‘mood’ to them (partly because I shot them on b/w) and I wish the camera didn’t have so many mechanical oddities because it does seem like it has the potential for fun shots.

It is the nature of test rolls + new cameras to just shoot whatever’s convenient. I promise more interesting shots out of future rolls (maybe).

April 2026 update

I was out shooting my 2nd roll when the little disc with the rewind arrows fell off the camera.

Guys, I’m not rough on my stuff. It is disheartening to see it dropping parts already. At this point I think it’s plain to see that the Lomo MC-A is cheaply made and not designed to last.

2nd roll!! I can’t believe it! I hope there wasn’t a light leak through the hole it exposed. Of course, this meant I had the joy of rewinding yet another roll of film by hand because of some failing in the MC-A’s rewind mechanisms.

Inside the camera I found a tiny screw and a little plastic shaft rolling around:

I am now on a quest to find a small enough/short enough screwdriver to put this back in place. (There are cheaper “project cameras” on eBay.)

The bottom line

I wouldn’t buy the Lomo MC-A again and I wouldn’t recommend it.

At this point it’s more of a curiosity and a “if I’m in the mood for dealing with all the weird” type of camera than something I would want to bring with me and count on for decent results.

If you’re looking for an entry-level film camera to just have fun with, the Kodak Ektar H35 is still my #1 recommendation. I have not written a complete review of the Ektar, but you can see some of my results with it here and here.

Dear film camera manufacturers,

I want to buy new film cameras! I want them to work and be reliable. I want them to come with a printed manual that I can hand down to my children and their children. I want them to be unpretentious. I want them to make it easy to rewind the film.

I am, like many others, ready to drop hundreds of dollars on a new film camera and I want to feel good about that purchase. Alas, the Lomo MC-A was not this.