Lomography Konstruktor Part II: User Controls

The Konstruktor comes with a bunch of controls that might seem a little alien and cumbersome, but fret not, this post aims to clear any doubts you may have.
Sticking to the Lomography tradition (simple plastic camera with few user changeable settings, just go out and shoot instead of trying to figure everything out kinda philosophy) the Konstruktor comes with
A fixed aperture (It says F10) [Aperture = related to the size of the hole which light travels, the smaller the bigger]
A fixed shutter speed (1/80s if I remember right) [Shutter speed = how much time the film is exposed]
So to compensate for changing light conditions, there are a few things that theoretically can be done. The easiest way would be to change the sensitivity of the film being used (higher sensitivity or higher ISO rated film for low light and lower sensitivity, or lower ISO for high light). Of course that sorts of limits your camera use to a particular area for the “correct” exposure, there are other ways to deal with that, such as using some kinda filter to reduce the incoming light etc. (I’ve yet to mess with this though). Our 1st roll of film was shot with Lomography’s ISO 400 rated color negative.
Twisting the lens in the front adjusts the focus, the included lens goes from 0.5m all the way to infinity. The lens feels tight (doesn’t feel sloppy, I hope it stays that way).
The viewfinder is a little bit of a weird deal though, there’s a top cover which flips up (with a bit of force initially I might add) and then 3 plastic pieces which fold into position to block ambient light, with a little magnifying glass that then flips up to aid in proper focusing. You peer into the thing from above, there’s a little matte glass screen below where the image to be taken is projected, you then compose and focus the shot and hit the shutter button.
Initially I had my doubts about this little magnifying glass, after using it for abit though, I find it fairly easy to focus. Add in the fact that the lens is an F10, I’m thinking a fair bit of our shots should be in focus.
After every shot that’s taken, the mirror and shutter spring needs to be reset, this is done by flipping a little lever in the front of the camera. The lever operates with a satisfying click every time. If you wanna take multi exposure shots, simply take the 1st shot, flip the mirror back up, take the next shot and so on, until you’re done and then advance the film.
The Konstruktor comes with 2 different shutter modes, normal (1/80s) and bulb mode, in bulb mode, pressing the shutter button opens the shutter (exposing the film) and releasing the button closes the shutter. 
Up top on the right side, we have the shutter as well as the film advance knob and shots remaining wheel. The shutter button is pretty self-explanatory. The film advance knob moves the film to the next frame (you have to do this manually after each shot, if you’re doing multi exposures, after the exposures), the knob will make a clicky ratcheting sound if you turn it in the wrong direction. You’ll have to move the shots remaining wheel manually every time after new film is loaded, more on that in a later blog post.
Lastly we have a film rewind knob, to rewind the film back into the canister after you’re done shooting the entire roll, so you can safely pull the film out of the camera and send it off to development. You’d have to turn it until all of the film goes back into the canister, which takes a fair amount of spinning. If you opened up the back without rewinding it, pretty sure most of the pictures would be screwed, especially if you’re under strong lighting.
These are all the external controls that are on the Konstruktor, I find the manual a little unclear about certain things, especially to a newcomer to film photography, there’s nothing in the manual that tells you how to advance the film to the next frame after taking a shot. They do cover loading and unloading of film though, which is where most people will have doubts I guess.
Next up, how to use the camera, stay tuned.