Sprocket Rocket

The Sprocket Rocket was introduced by Lomography in fall 2010. It is a panorama camera and uses normal 35mm film. The introductory price was 79€, but this was later lowered to 69€.

With its super wide-angle lens, it exposes 72x35mm of the film, including the perforation. One image with the Sprocket Rocket is roughly equivalent to two normal images. On a normal 35mm film with 36 frames, approximately 18 frames fit with the Sprocket Rocket.

The Sprocket Rocket has a 30mm lens on plastic with a maximum aperture of f/10.8 (so almost f/11). It is characterized by strong vignetting and a decrease in sharpness in the corners.

Two exposure times are available with this panorama, 1/100 second and bulb for long exposures. Multiple exposures can be created simply by releasing the shutter several times, as there is no shutter lock. The film can be fast-forwarded and rewound at will. The Sprocket Rocket has two distance settings. One for close-ups (0.6 meters to 1 meter) and one for the rest (1 meter to infinity).

A strap can be attached by a screw with a handle that screws into the tripod thread. It has a hot shoe for connecting an external flash and a thread for a tripod.

During development, care should be taken not to cut the film. If the lab does this, cut-up images could be the result. Prints from the Sprocket Rocket are even harder to get. This is because most labs do not make prints with the Sprockets on them. A good solution is to scan the images yourself and then send them to a lab for printing.

The Sprocket Rocket is made of plastic. Included with the Sprocket Rocket are instructions, a lens cap, a small book with photos and history of the Sprocket Rocket, and a poster. Also included in the package a mask for the camera, this prevents the exposure of the Sprockets.

An alternative to the Sprocket Rocket is the Holga 135 Pan. It does not offer the possibility to expose the Sprockets, but it has a pinhole lens.

If you want a panorama camera with a “real” lens and more settings, you should have a look at the Horizon cameras.

Perforation?

Film perforation, or sprockets, refers to the holes in 35mm film that are punched in the top and bottom. These are needed in most cameras for transport and are not exposed. In addition to the Sprocket Rocket, the Spinner 360 also exposes the sprockets by default.

Accessories for the Sprocket Rocket

Lomography Digitaliza 35mm

Most flatbed scanners cannot scan sprockets with the supplied mask. This is what the Lomography Digitaliza 35mm was designed for. The magnetic film holder ensures that the sprockets can still be scanned. So you get scans with the film perforation.