Bombproof gadgets: Our most trusty technology

Lomo LC-A
I've dropped it on the floor. I've dangled it over the edges of tall buildings and knocked it into walls. I'm pretty sure I've even dropped it down some stairs, but my Lomo LC-A keeps snapping away.

I bought one of the older Lomo Kompakt Automats -- the Russian cameras invented in the 1980s by the exuberantly monikered General Igor Petrowitsch Kornitzky and Michail Panfilowitsch Panfiloff -- from eBay about eight years ago. Being clumsy, I was regularly banging up my Nikon SLR and wanted something I could afford to hurt. What I got in the Lomo was a relatively simple point-and-shoot system in a hefty, sturdy black casing. All I had to do to get a great shot was leave the aperture settings on automatic, change the focus settings and hope that I'd converted the Russian ISOs correctly. Walls be damned.

Lomos -- turned Lomo LC-As -- were popularised by the Lomography Society in the early 1990s, encouraging you to 'shoot from the hip' -- and from the wallet, with a standard package now costing around £175. Still, no new Lomo make I've owned has ever been as sturdy as the older one. The newer front focusing plates have fallen off, the screws have come loose around the back and sides and the shutters have become unreliable. All I've needed on this old timer has been some gaffer tape around the sides. Not a bad result for a tumble down the stairs. -Shannon Doubleday

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