LAM Guides · Film stock & bodies
Plenty of apps call their look presets "cameras," but they're really just filters with a costume name. A real camera body bundles several physical things that change together — not one colour overlay dropped on top.
Picking a different body in LAM changes at least four things at once: lens character (sharpness, edge distortion, vignette falloff), the default film stock's own colour response, the default grain structure (a fast film stock shows different grain than a slow one), and sometimes other physical behaviour like a built-in flash or a default light leak. Switching bodies is closer to swapping an actual physical camera than swapping a colour preset.
| Body | Reference |
|---|---|
| LAM Classic | 35 mm rangefinder · 1960s |
| Disposable | Single-use camera · 1990s |
| CCD Digicam | Asian Y2K digicam · 2003 |
| 16mm Cine | Cine film, Vietnamese arthouse era |
| Y2K Pink | Pink compact digicam · 1999 |
| Portia Studio | Medium-format pro · 1995 |
| Instant Mini | Instant Mini · Japan, 2010s |
| Saigon | Saigon tropical film · 1990s |
| Seoul | Seoul indie compact · 2005 |
| Box 36 | Box camera · 1930s |
| Twin Lens | Twin-lens reflex · 1950s |
| Half Frame | Half-frame compact · 1960s |
| SLR 70 | Mechanical SLR · 1970s |
| Instant 81 | Instant camera · 1981 |
| Super 8 | Super 8 home movie · 1970s |
| Toy Camera | Toy camera · 1980s |
Why sixteen, and not a hundred? Each body in LAM is built on its own — its lens character, default film, grain, frame and roll length — not renamed and nudged with a few sliders. Adding a body means doing that work again, not copying a preset. (LAM launched with nine; the list grew to sixteen in 1.0.3.)
There's no single "best" body — only the one that fits the scene. A CCD compact suits everyday daylight shots. A 16mm cine body suits scenes with motion and a nostalgic mood. An instant-film body suits moments you want to feel finished the instant you shoot them, no further adjustment needed. The fastest way to feel the difference is to shoot the exact same scene through a few different bodies — the colour, the grain, even the mood, change noticeably, not just the tint.