A few months back I was catching up on boingboing.net and came upon this post about putting a low-fi plastic camera ‘lens’ on a digital camera. I’ve used a Holga for years as a fun carry around medium format camera, although due to costs and lack of time to spend in the darkroom, digital has become my go-to solution. It has occurred to me to hack up a way to attach the Holga lens to my camera, but I’m not terribly handy with these kinds of things. I love the look of the soft focus and natural vignette you get, as well as the uncertain results.
Recently, David and I took a hike around the Pt. Reyes area, and I brought along my trusty old Canon 20D loaded up with this Holga lens to play around with. The results are not displeasing! Not sure I’d ever use this on a gig, but it’s kind of fun to recharge my creative batteries by not thinking about f-stop or perfect focus.
One of the most photographed bridges in the world, apparently.
Ice plants along the coast, in bloom.
The hills are filled with naturalized Iris flowers. It’s astoundingly beautiful.
Holga lenses are available for both Canon and Nikon cameras, available for a mere $25 from HolgaDirect. Pick one up! I’m having a lot of fun with mine.
