Toy Cameras

Taken about an hour after I bought it

I've been waiting for a few weeks to write about these guys since I bought my first one in the middle of August. There are a couple of different models that are available these days with the most well known models being the Diana and the Holga 120. I bought the Holga since it was a bit more inexpensive and it suited my more artistic shooting purposes.



The Holga comes in several different flavors and colors and has several optional upgrades such as a 2x telephoto, 0.5x wide angle, and fish eye lens attachments.

For some weird reason, this was my favorite shot of the set.

This is a pretty crappy camera by any definition imaginable. The optics are made out of plastic( unless you  get the version that uses glass), the light leaks in through various points including the red window on the back, there are only 4 focusing points and it is flimsy as hell. I showed it to one of my friends and she thought it squirted water out of the front. I told her to give me a bit of time and I'll make it do that.

The plastic lens is one of the most unique parts of the camera. These guys are like snow flakes. There are no two that are alike. Many of them have weird abberations that cause focusing issues in certain spots of the picture. The other unique feature is the light leaks. You get better leaks on color film such as over exposed spots and odd colors. On my test rolls, it was non existent on my black and white film except on the edges where the numbering was.

The focusing was a bit difficult because you have to know what distance range each of the four settings have to  be to get a clear picture. As you can see from the train crossing above, I had a bit of difficulty with this since the focusing isn't seen at all in the viewfinder like most manual rangefinders like the Fujifilm x100.



The real benefit of these cameras are for people who are high strung ( not afraid that I fall into this category frequently) and they need some time to slow down. Another plus for this camera is the lack of features. You have to work your ass off to get the picture you want and/or need instead of having a flimsy expensive zoom do all the work for you.

I recommend this camera to anybody who loves to shoot film or are looking to do something a bit different and get out of your comfort zone. I'm going to be doing this whenever I shoot with this guy since I will be shooting exclusively with Fujifilm Velvia rvp50.

I only posted a handfull of images from my test shoot. I have two other galleries with the rest of the shots here and here. The first one has a roll I shot back in the end of May or beginning of June, when I went sailing in San Pedro. I'll be displaying those next week probably, or this Sunday at the earliest.