What a strange life Diana has had. I'm sure most of us remember a few years back when Diana cameras seemed to have unending popularity - receiving more attention than they had ever gotten in a pre-internet age. Boxed Dianas were selling for $150 and sometimes even more on ebay. Threads about Diana cameras were all across the internet, not just on toy-centric boards. It was really a sort of mania for a couple of years.
Then Lomography introduced the Diana+. And suddenly the market was saturated. Demand was neutralized. In a way the Diana even somehow became un-hip. It was no longer a rare, out of production item, that only people with money to blow could obtain. Prices fell, and fell and fell. And weirdly, it seems a lot of these cameras just came out of hiding as well. Maybe it's just that there are more people online now than there were six or seven years ago - but Dianas used to be relatively uncommon even on ebay. Now there always seems to be some available.
So what now? The cameras are obtainable again. Some of the mystique has gone. So who uses them now? People who're tragically late for the fad, the uncoolest of the uncool, or those who loved them all along whether or not they were the hot thing of the moment on the internet? Where is the future going for Diana? In another ten years when we've mostly all forgotten about the Diana fad, will there be a resurgence? Will somebody out there put together a website with a bunch of cross-processed photos out of a Diana and talk about how important it is that the camera doesn't matter, and just to get out there and shoot with what you've got (but also imply that the camera really does matter, because how else could you appreciate that the camera doesn't matter if you don't have a camera that drives home the point by being fragile plastic, and having a really crappy lens?).
How long until the Diana is enough out of our consciousness to go underground again, come back and surprise everybody?
