What’s left on the shelf today are the types of cameras that have always been left on the shelf. I’m talking about fixed-focus (focus free, apologies) plastic fantastic party favor cameras from the 1980s and ’90s. The kind of camera you’d get for subscribing to a magazine, or opening a checking account at the local bank.

The cameras themselves come in varying states of quality, ranging from Just Okay to Bad, made worse with age and wear, having had rougher lives as not-quite-disposable, technically reusable cameras. They’re not the prettiest cameras but hey, they’re cameras.

For as constant a presence as these cameras have been, for me, they never registered as actual photographic options. I was never sure if they’d work, and never sure if they’d offer anything more than a slight variation of the lo-fi disposable look. Current film prices add to the hesitation; throwing a $12 roll of film (plus $15-20 in processing) into a camera that may not offer anything appreciably different from any other toy camera doesn’t sound quite as appealing as simply using a nicer, more functional camera.

These thoughts swirled through my head during a recent thrift shop browse when I stumbled upon just such a camera in, where else, the toy section. Closer inspection revealed a 35mm toy camera clad in teal and black, in uncommonly good condition. The shutter actually worked and had a snappy (albeit plasticky) action, the advance wheel clicked along smooth and sure, and the lens was protected by a built-in sliding cover which, to my surprise, also locked the shutter button.

By toy camera standards, this is suspiciously high technology.

But what really gave me pause was the name — “Baby’s First Photo.” What any baby would have to do with photography, much less film photography, is a mystery. Baby’s First Photo may have been intended for toddlers, but do toddler’s really have that kind of patience and coordination? I could maybe imagine a four-year-old handling the camera, but even that’s optimistic.

I mention this not to make fun of the camera (okay, maybe just a little), but because it underscores the intrigue of this camera – we may never know why they made this. In fact, we may never truly know anything about it at all. Searching the internet for “Baby’s First Photo 35mm camera” did and currently does not seem to yield any result, leaving me to wonder where in Hell this camera came from.

Running my new Baby’s First Photo through the checkout scanner, I realized that I felt something in the photographic hobby that I hadn’t felt in quite some time — surprise and mystery.

It’s something that I think I needed, personally, and something that’s missing in the current internet-based film photography landscape.

And it’s something that Baby’s First Photo, and every camera like it, has.

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The initial appeal of most focus-free toy cameras is their incredibly low price point and seemingly randomized build and image quality, traits that sustain toy camera enthusiasts and form the central marketing angle of companies like Lomography. The toy camera brings simplicity, accessibility, and promises of off-the-wall, come-what-may photography. The is potent and evergreen.

Baby’s First Photo delivers on these promises, but adds a surprising, almost unnerving amount of quality to that formula. The plastic which makes up the camera is of a different generation, which is to say it’s thicker, sturdier, and doesn’t feel like it’ll fall to pieces midway through a test roll. It won’t go toe to toe with a Nikon F, but its build embarrasses most cheap cameras of its kind.

Functionally, Baby’s First Photo is typical toy camera fare. It features a simple plastic lens (whether or not it contains one, two, or three elements is anyone’s guess), with a simple plastic leaf shutter of some indeterminate speed (probably somewhere between 1/30th to 1/60th of a second) that gives off an uneasy plastic clack. The images it makes are typical of the segment as well; smudging is everywhere, softness abounds, and this particular camera vignettes to the point where one can almost outline a perfect circle within each photo. The lens isn’t sharp in the center, and it’s even less sharp in the corners. It’s a charming look, but then again, most other toy cameras can pull this off just as well.

A true sleeper, the juicy grail that every reviewer of anything on the internet craves, Baby’s First Photo is not.

In fact, there is nothing conventionally special about Baby’s First Photo. There’s nothing quirky in its specs or in its design that could suggest that this would be a desirable camera for anybody (besides maybe its build quality). And other than the fact that cameras like these are artifacts of a reality where film cameras were once a part of the fabric of living in the late 20th century, there’s no real history to Baby’s First Photo. It seems to have come from nowhere and seems to be going nowhere. And it’s precisely this that gets me so excited.

A large part of the intrigue of Baby’s First Photo is, admittedly, down to timing. It came into my life at a time where I started to really tire of the Internet’s propensity to exploit, well, everything.

I became tired of Instagram reels, TikToks, YouTube video essays telling me what the new and happening thing was, or how criminally under- or over-rated things are, especially when it came to cameras (I do understand the irony of writing this as a member of this website). I started to become pessimistic and cynical about the landscape; in an environment where everything is broadcast on a second-by-second basis and algorithmically tailored at all times (and most scary of all, created specifically for People Like You), and where social media platforms and tech companies make massive money exploiting every conceivable corner and facet of life, true mystery and surprise is much harder to come by. It can seem some days that there is no new frontier to explore; it’s all been seen before, that whatever you do see has already been curated and taken off the shelf, and whatever you will see in the future will be tailor-made for your demographic.

Baby’s First Photo and other mysterious, faceless film cameras like it, somehow exist outside of this world. They’re not criminally under-rated sleeper cameras, they’re not available in numbers high enough even to garner cult followings, and they have little to no historical value. In place of that, they can offer something truly unexpected and unknown. The experience sits in a rare blind spot of the increasingly omnipresent eye of the digital media machine.

But while I would love for that to be the thesis of this article, I can’t make that statement definitively due to something I mentioned earlier – film photography’s steadily disappearing accessibility. While it’s true that Baby’s First Photo and cameras like it only cost a dollar or two, film and development prices have skyrocketed to the point where each shot of a 36 exposure roll of C-41 35mm color film, after processing, costs ~$1 USD. With such a high price, it’s riskier than ever to trust a roll of even consumer film to any old focus free camera of questionable origin. This is perhaps the saddest part of this camera, and of all cheap film cameras; true curiosity can bring a shooter to cheap focus free cameras, but the cost of film itself in 2023 has put a high price tag on curiosity itself.

So what’s left? We’ve got a little green blob of a camera with no history and no real importance. But even with that, I can’t deny that I feel something about this camera. If Baby’s First Photo is completely inconsequential to history and meaningless to the film photography renaissance, I want to make it meaningful, even if it’s for nobody but myself.

So, I decided to give this camera a task befitting the name. I wanted Baby’s First Photo to actually take the first photo of a baby, my newborn niece.

In truth, when I first found this camera on the shelf, I almost immediately decided that this would be its purpose. The timing was perfect as, according to hospital due dates, my new niece was going to be born sometime within the month. I had already taken a picture of the first time I saw my newborn nephew a few years ago (featured in my profile of the Olympus Pen FT), so I wanted to continue the tradition. I didn’t know how the camera would behave, but that was fine. I wanted to trust the feeling of newness and surprise and ride it as far as it would take me.

When the time came, I entered the hospital room where my sister and her newborn were resting. There was little to no light, and the shades were drawn shut. Great conditions for babies trying to sleep, but not so good for cameras with slow plastic lenses and fixed shutter speeds. Nevertheless, I had a job to do.

I took the camera out and looked at my new niece for the first time, through a plastic viewfinder on a camera from nowhere. She was lying down in a plastic crib, a sliver of light the only illumination. I snapped the photo, not knowing what I’d get, or if I’d get anything. And when I finally got that film developed, I was shocked. The image wasn’t at all what I was expecting, but became something much greater than that. And there it was again; that same surprise, that same feeling of mystery I’d found when I first saw this camera for the first time.

It might seem that everything’s been picked over. It might seem everything has been or will be explained, curated, exploited. And maybe there really aren’t any more frontiers. That might all be true.

But then again, there’s always this. There always will be.

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But over the last few years I’ve increasingly realized there is another part to the film ecosystem that the film community often doesn’t talk about, the camera supply side. Sure, we hear about it when a celebrity or popular YouTuber highlights a camera and prices suddenly skyrocket. Times like these, the realities of a market with largely a fixed supply and varying demand become all too apparent. But there seems to be a solution to this that not many people take. Buy new cameras. Not “new to you,” but like, new, from a company, with a box and everything. You don’t even have to go to eBay for them.

So that’s what I decided to do this year. If I wanted to buy a camera, it had to be new.

Now for 35mm options, I’m pretty well stocked and don’t have much of a need for a new camera. My Pentax KX was my first camera and it’s still my favorite by far. If I had to pare down to just one camera, it would be an easy choice. The KX is a glorious piece of kit.

Medium format was an entirely different beast. Up until 2020 I had never shot a medium format camera. Despite taking some photography classes in college, it just never came up. But after doing some research, I initially got into the format with the Mamiya C33 TLR, picking up the 65mm and 105mm in a kit. Fantastic camera, amazing glass, loved the system, two-thumbs up. Would buy again. But I mostly shoot documentary family stuff, so a camera with no metering and longer lenses made it not ideal for the everyday shooting I do. I then turned to a Pentax 645n, which solved both of those complaints. But it’s a big camera. It doesn’t pass my critical “fits in my car’s center console” test, which means I often don’t take it with me and the family, and thus it’s a bit of a shelf queen. Plus it’s possibly the loudest camera in existence. So maybe medium format just didn’t meet my needs.

The Solution Presents Itself

While researching for medium format options that might thread my rather specific needle, I happened upon Eduardo Pavez Goye’s review of the Lomo LC-A 120. What stood out to me was the form factor, a 6×6 camera that was coat pocket-able and weighed less than the Pentax 45mm f2.8 lens for my 645n. It’s nothing fancy, basically a 6×6 full auto point-and-shoot, but it seemed to meet my requirements. Eduardo’s review piqued my interest in its capabilities. It offered a glass ultra-wide lens, and seemed to have decent metering.

The one thing I was concerned about was the camera’s zone-focusing. I hadn’t really done much zone focusing in the past, and it seemed like a completely unreliable way to try and grab a shot. But while I was debating about the camera, I got a hold of a Rollei 35, with a similar focal length to the LC-A 120 (40mm vs 38mm). After a few rolls and being able to get a good hit rate with it, I was encouraged to take the plunge on the Lomo.

What is Zone Focus, Plus How and When to Do It

Zone focusing (sometimes called scale focusing) allows a photographer to know what will be in focus without even looking through the viewfinder. It's an invaluable technique that's often used in street and other types of photography where speed and spontaneity are factors.

Struggling to Make It Work

As someone who’s ordered a fair amount of camera gear in the last few years, there was something exciting about getting the LC-A 120. Rather than arriving trapped in bubble wrap and smelling musty, it came fully sealed in a brand new box. Honestly, Lomography’s packaging was almost too much, very stylish and ornate, with an included photo book of sample photos from the camera, a manual, cable release, and a strap. I appreciate the accessories, but all the paper and space seemed a little wasteful. I’m sure it looks good on a shelf but give me the option for minimalist packaging.

That being said, everything seemed very thoughtfully included, down to the LR44 batteries needed to operate the camera. This was my first sign that maybe these cameras weren’t selling like hot cakes. The batteries included were expired and starting to corrode. Not the end of the world; they remained safely nestled in their packaging and I had a bunch of spare batteries around, so I was off to the races.

I quickly shot off two rolls with the camera, and everything seemed to be operating as expected. In my haste, I neglected to put on the camera strap included with the camera. When I decided to add it on, I noticed that one of the strap lugs was super dented. If this was an [EXC!!++++++] camera from eBay, I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But, it came like that straight out of the box. The camera had a warranty from Lomography, so I contacted their support and got an exchange.

This is where things got frustrating. I am now on my fourth copy of this camera, all returned under warranty. While the first two rolls from my original dented unit turned out fine, every other copy has given me not insignificant light leaks on my photos. With the first roll, I thought it was something I did during loading. But after being extremely careful and even trying to load it in a dark bag, I was still getting light leaks.

Throughout this process, Lomography’s support has been top notch. They are quick to respond to emails, and turned around the exchanges very quickly. But it was extremely frustrating when the returns didn’t seem to resolve the issue. This is either a design flaw with the camera or perhaps an effect of these cameras sitting for some time, maybe both.

A Word on Lomography

At this point, I’m sure some readers will think to themselves, “What did you expect, you bought a camera from Lomography. They make cheap plastic junk.” While my own experience with the LC-A 120 was less than ideal, I can’t abide this kind of knee jerk negativity. I’ve heard Cameradactyl’s Ethan Moses talking about the capital costs involved with making a camera using plastic injection molding, and they are daunting. You can say that Lomography chases fads or doesn’t make cameras that you like, but you can’t deny they are investing in building out both sides of the analog photography world in a way that very few companies can today. A lot of this is bringing new products to market, like the Lomograflok.

While my experience with the LC-A 120 may have been frustrating, and quality control might be something Lomography should double down on, the reason I was attracted to the camera in the first place was because it was genuinely innovative. It filled a niche like no other available camera could. I remain impressed with it as an idea, even if the execution didn’t live up to it. Do I wish Lomography could do better in some regards? Sure. But I refuse to view them as anything other than essential to the future of analog photography.

Life After Leaks

Setting aside the light leak issues, let’s talk about using this camera. Remember how I said that zone focusing the Rollei 35 gave me the confidence to take on the LC-A 120? Well I was partially justified in that act of hubris. Focusing on it is fairly reliable, but operates much differently than on the Rollei. With that camera, you’re essentially using a fully manual camera, with a traditional focus scale on the lens. This matters because I really only shoot the 35 at f/8 or slower, meaning that I know how much depth of field I’m going to have to help hedge my guess about guessing distance wrong.

You don’t have that luxury on the LC-A, since the aperture (and shutter speed for that matter) are all handled by the camera. Instead of a set focus scale, you have a little lever with set markings and detents for 0.6m, 1m, 2.5m, and infinity. You can also set the lever in between these, but you’re really guessing at that point. There are some advantages to this arrangement. Unlike the Rollei 35, you can both quickly confirm and change focus with the camera up to your eye, perfect for quick shots. Since there are only four options, you can just rack the level quickly to move the focus. Given that the lens only goes down to f/4.5, you’ve always got a little depth of field to play around with, especially beyond 1 meter.

Overall, I actually really like the design of this camera. The body is all plastic, but when handling it, you don’t get any creaks. Lomography uses a softer touch plastic where you grip the camera, embossed with a leatherette styling, and feels good in the hand. The shutter button feels really nice, with a long throw but a solid actuation. Like the 35mm original LC-A, the 120 is designed for quick street work. The lens cover needs to be slid down to shoot. Having it up blocks the viewfinder and locks the shutter, so you can’t accidentally shoot a frame, a nice touch. I was afraid that moving the lens cover would also move the focus level, but luckily your focus stays put.

A lot of what makes me put up with the travails of the LC-A 120 is the lens. At 38mm on a 6×6 negative, it offers a 21mm equivalent field of view, which is always wider than you think it is, especially vertically. This alone makes the camera unique, as getting a lens that wide in medium format generally requires buying a lens that’s considerably more expensive and heavy. That wouldn’t mean a lot if it was bad, but I find it sharp enough and punch as hell. In all of the sample photos Lomography puts up for the camera, they show a heavy vignette. I haven’t found it to be nearly as dramatic, often there’s no vignette, so your mileage may vary.

Areas of Improvement

I suspect that Lomography isn’t actively manufacturing this camera any more and selling through old stock. All the replacements I received showed signs of sitting for a while (one was quite dusty). If that’s the case, there are a few features I’d love to see Lomography add to a refreshed model, maybe a Lomo LC-A 120+.

Asking for aperture priority on this camera seems silly given that it’s a simple device electronically. But I wish there was a way to lock the aperture into a set stopped down position, say f/8. That’s something you can do on a flipping Holga. Not only would this make it easier to focus critical shots, but it would also be nice for working with flash. Right now using flash means everything is shot wide open, which is rarely ideal.

Speaking of flash, the camera does have a hot shoe but hacks a PC sync port. I know I could get an adapter for the shoe, but it would be nice to get some off-camera flash a little easier with this camera. While I’m at it a proper bulb mode would be great for long exposures. You can sort of do this by blocking the light meter, but just give it to me as a proper option. Exposure compensation is that other glaring omission on this camera. Given that you can only set ISO in full stops from 100-1600, even having a ∓ 1 option would add a lot of flexibility. Again you can sort of hack it with the ISO dial, but it’s a hassle.

Would I Buy It Again

Honestly, if I had known about the light leak issues, I would have just kept my original copy and done without a strap. The camera is pocket-able enough that I just would have used a wrist strap on the other good lug. I’ve ended up with a lot of wasted, or at least compromised, film as a result of this camera. A lot of it was original frozen Acros, that hurts.

But I keep wanting to love this camera. It’s truly unique in the photography world. The look you can get from the lens is great, made even better because you can take it anywhere. While expensive compared to a lot of other Lomography gear, compared to other ultra-wide, portable, or just more recent medium format cameras, it’s priced competitively, if not a bargain. With everything I’ve gone through with this camera, the one thing I would never do is buy it used. I can’t reiterate how nice it was to have a warranty on this camera, with actual company support, rather than hoping that I could get a refund on eBay or something like that. While you can definitely find bargains on these used cameras online, I’d hesitate to pull the trigger unless you get it in writing that it’s in light tight condition.

Overall the LC-A 120 is sticking around for now. When it nails a shot, it’s just so dang fun. Right now it fits really well into my need for packing light. Combined with my Rollei 35, I can pack two cameras on my without needing a bag (although if both are in my pockets probably a belt). I now know its limitations quite well. It’s serviceable as a fun documentary camera, where I’m not strictly look for precision. I thought that this might be a great landscape companion, but until I can tame the light leaks, I think that’s asking a bit too much. I’ve recently found a lot of fun using it with flash, dragging the shutter to get some striking motion blur and a relatively crisp subject.

Knowing what I do now, I’d probably pass on buying it. I don’t need a medium format camera for my work. But now that I have it, it’s still a striking and supremely unique camera.

Buy a Lomo LC-A on eBay here

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[Some of the links in this article will direct users to our affiliates at B&H Photo, Amazon, and eBay. By purchasing anything using these links, Casual Photophile may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you. This helps Casual Photophile produce the content we produce. Many thanks for your support.]

The post The Camera of Shattered Dreams: Living with the Lomo LC-A 120 appeared first on Casual Photophile.

The idea for this article about an ancient video game-based toy camera from 1998 sprung from the delivery to my home of a brand new product. I ordered the Analogue Pocket over two years ago and it’s finally arrived. Twenty-four hours after unpacking the new retro-modern handheld gaming device, it’s very clear that it was worth the wait.

Normally my two favorite hobbies, retro video games and retro cameras, would never intersect and the itch that I have to create content around retro gaming would never be scratched here on CP. (This itch is where my pet project GGDreamcast and its associated YouTube channel came from.) But since the Analogue Pocket is a modern reinterpretation of the original Game Boy, I’m able to plug and play and shoot with my ancient Game Boy Camera! (The Analogue Pocket can also play Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, SEGA GameGear, Neo Geo Pocket Color, and more!)

I don’t need a better excuse to write an article about a game-liker product for the pages of my website made for camera-likers. So, here we go. Let’s look at my Game Boy Camera.

What is the Game Boy Camera

The Nintendo Game Boy Camera (named the Pocket Camera in Japan) was released in 1998 and produced until 2002 as an accessory/game for the Nintendo Game Boy handheld video game system. The Game Boy Camera is a toy digital camera which could be used by Game Boy players to shoot, edit, share, and print simple grayscale photographs.

The camera (and its printer) was co-designed by Masato Kuwahara (who later became project leader for the Nintendo DSi) and Hirozaku “Chip” Tanaka, the pioneer of chip tune music and a veritable video gaming legend (the man’s soundtrack credits include Metroid, Kid Icarus, Super Mario Land, Mother, Dr. Mario and Earthbound).

The camera plugs into any Game Boy system just the same as any Game Boy game would (and as we can see, it can also plug into brand new handheld systems like the Analogue Pocket). A 128×128 pixel CMOS sensor records 128×112 grayscale images using the 4-color palette of the Game Boy system. The camera has the ability to swivel 180 degrees in order to offer either a front- or back-facing view (making it an ideal camera for selfies).

The camera is controlled through the controls of the Game Boy. Images can be manipulated and edited through use of the system’s buttons. Stamps of popular Nintendo characters can be layered onto photographs, as can numerous “stickers” which allow the user to further edit photos with cartoon facial features, graphics, icons, text, and free-hand drawing. Photos can be combined to create animations.

The camera also features a handful of shooting modes and special effect lenses. These include a self-timer, time-lapse shooting, mirror lenses, panorama stitching (the photos made in this mode can then be printed in long strips using the printer), and montage.

When the Game Boy Camera released to the public it was one of the earliest consumer digital cameras, and in 1999 it was featured in the Guinness World Records for being the world’s smallest digital camera (a record which has since been broken).

In addition to the camera functionality, the Game Boy Camera contains a handful of simple games based on early Nintendo games such as Space Fever II and Ball, the game originally found on the classic Nintendo Game & Watch handheld (which has seen resurgence in interest over the past year with the release of new Mario and Zelda Game & Watch collectible systems). The camera’s built-in games are played using the Game Boy controls as well, and some characters within the mini games can have photos of the user’s face superimposed on the character.

When it was released, the Game Boy Camera cost $49.95 and was an instant success. In Japan alone, Nintendo sold over 500,000 units within three weeks of the product’s release. Most buyers also purchased the $59.95 Game Boy Printer, which printed Game Boy Camera photos onto sticker-backed heat transfer paper.

Shooting the Game Boy Camera 24 Years Later

Shooting the Game Boy Camera is a real treat for people like me, who used one twenty-four years ago and who now have a propensity for nostalgia. I’m not sure if the experience would be as lovely for those lacking this particular itch. Those who don’t fondly remember this stupid little device likely won’t feel their hearts glow over the obvious-human-wearing-a-costume Mario that dances immediately after the title for the game populates the screen. But if you’re like me, well, that title screen hits pretty hard.

Using the Game Boy Camera is simple (it was, after all, designed and marketed toward actual children). Simply fire up the Game Boy, point the camera at something, and press the A button. You’ve made a picture.

For the artists among us, there’s a contrast slider and brightness control. These rudimentary controls do actually impact the final image, but exceeding the central zones of these sliders will likely lead to a totally useless image. The CMOS sensor is tiny and the photos this camera makes are naturally of extremely low resolution and quality. With just four total pixel variations (ranging from light to dark in a single color), there’s essentially no dynamic range.

The Images

Images from the Game Boy Camera are pretty ridiculous. And when we print them out on the Game Boy Printer, they’re pretty horrible. At least, mine were. And that’s (presumably) because the heat-transfer printer paper that I have is twenty years old, or that my printer itself just isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do anymore. Who knows.

Let’s be honest. These photos and the camera that makes them defy review. I will not even attempt to treat the Game Boy Camera as if it were a real camera.

But wait! I just learned that the Game Boy Camera was once used by a PhD student to successfully photograph Jupiter through a 10″ telescope. Maybe this is a real camera after all!

No, no. Let’s be real. This thing is a nostalgia machine. In 2021 and beyond it exists not to make good photos. It exists today to bring a smile to the face of an aging dad, to share the dad’s childhood with their young kid, and to cause the dad to hear himself say aloud (and with horror) the phrase “Back when I was your age…”

Damn, we’re getting old.

But that’s okay.

It’s better being older. We can buy the stuff we wanted when we were little, and we can afford to buy Game Boy Printer paper which our parents would never spring for! And though the passage of time gives us pangs of nostalgia so bad it hurts, it also gives us amazing new devices like the Analogue Pocket, which absolutely destroy the products of our youth in the spec department! (The Analogue Pocket’s 3.5 inch screen has a native resolution ten times that of the original Game Boy. TEN!)

What a time to be alive.

Get your own Game Boy Camera on eBay here!

Get an Analogue Pocket on eBay here (because they’re sadly sold out from Analogue)

Buy an actual camera from my camera shop, F Stop Cameras

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There are two ambiguities here (it’s just a working definition, after all). Are we talking about the value of a used camera, or retail price? And what kind of film: a cheap roll like Kentmere or Foma, or a premium stock like Fuji Velvia?

In 2007, the Pogo Click 35mm Focus Free camera retailed in India for Rs. 99. That’s around Rs. 250 in today’s money, or 3.50 US Dollars. So even if we take the narrowest definition – a camera whose retail value at least doubles when loaded with cheap film – the Pogo makes the grade as a trashcam.

Now you might say that qualifying as a trashcam is not exactly ‘making the grade’. The term trashcam does sound derogatory, but I think the time is ripe to reclaim the term. Many years ago I read a New Yorker article which had a line that stuck with me: ‘[Tiger] Woods would destroy us with a single rusty five-iron found at the back of a garage, and Cartier-Bresson could have picked up a Box Brownie and done more with a roll of film […] than the rest of us would manage with a lifetime of Leicas.’

It’s easy to be dismissive of the Pogo and its ilk. But it’s more interesting, I think, to try and take good pictures with it. Likewise, it’s easy to write a snarky review – throw in a few jokes about its plastic lens and general lack of features. But it’s more interesting to approach it like I would any other camera. How does it measure up in light of what it cost? Who was it made for, and how would they use it? Above all, what kind of pictures does it make?

1. Focus and Exposure

The Pogo is an all-plastic, fixed-focus 35mm film camera with no exposure control. Such cameras are usually set to ~f/8 and ~1/100 sec. The small aperture, combined with the relatively wide focal length of ~35mm ensures that everything from ~2 metres to infinity is in focus.

You may have noticed that I used the approximately symbol (~) four times in the previous paragraph. That’s because all of these numbers are based on general internet research on ‘35mm focus free’ cameras. I couldn’t find info on the Pogo in particular, and neither the camera nor its rudimentary instruction manual concerns itself with such minor details. But on the one roll of film which I’ve so far shot with this camera, these assumptions stood me in good stead, so I think they are as good a starting-point as any.

On some higher-end point-and-shoot cameras, focus and exposure are set automatically, but that requires sophisticated electronics which drive up the price and are prone to failure. Manual focus and exposure, on the other hand, is a bit of a learning curve. The Pogo, it seems, was designed for children, or for adults who want to take pictures with the minimum of effort. As such, it does away with the ability to control focus and exposure altogether. Just compose and click: photography at its purest. Sort of.

Needless to say, there are downsides. The lack of exposure control means you can only use the camera in a limited range of lighting conditions. There’s no scope for creative tricks like shallow depth of field or slow shutter speeds. Anything closer than 2 meters will be blurry. Anything further away will be in focus. And so on.

2. Other Features

This will be a short section; the Pogo has fewer features than any camera I have ever used. On top, it has the shutter-release and a film rewind knob. On the left you have a latch to pop open the film door. On the back, there is the film door itself, and below it, a dial for advancing film (which also cocks the shutter). On the bottom, there’s a frame counter, and a button you press when rewinding film. There are no other controls. In particular, there is no hot shoe, flash, lens cover, self-timer or tripod mount (not that you need one at ~1/100 sec).

On the plus side, there is no need for batteries, and few things can go wrong. It is a minimalist, all-mechanical camera – just like the Leica M2. In fact in at least one respect, the Pogo is more advanced: its frame counter resets to zero when you open the film door – a feature missing on the Leica M2.

3. Handling

With the possible exception of small internal parts like springs and screws, the Pogo (including the lens, which I will come to later) is made entirely of plastic – very light plastic at that. As you would expect, it feels very flimsy. I would not drop it, say, or force the film advance dial if it got stuck. That has not happened to me so far, but the dial is possibly my least favorite thing about the camera. It is serrated, which is unpleasant to my fingers, and it makes a squeaky sound.

The Pogo’s viewfinder has plastic optics. Like most compact cameras, it is a reverse Galilean type where everything is in focus. It’s fairly small, and has barrel distortion (unlike the lens, which has pincushion distortion). I didn’t specifically test for whether its field of view matches that of the lens, but it seems close enough.

The grip is surprisingly comfortable. The Pogo has a contoured front, and a plastic thumb-rest on the back. For added security, there is a wrist loop threaded to the side of the body. Film loading and rewind are manual, but straightforward. The camera is very easy to carry – super light (the upside of cheap plastic) and compact.

4. History

Toy cameras have been manufactured over decades – the iconic Diana came out way back in the 1960s, and while the likes of Nikon and Canon have stopped making film cameras, toy cameras are still going strong. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes, both 35mm and medium-format. Some manufacturers went for the SLR look, while others got more creative. Many, like the Pogo, have a classic compact-camera shape, which I personally prefer for this type of camera. Form follows function, and the lack of decorative or pseudo-SLR elements keeps it smaller and lighter.

Like many other toy cameras, the Pogo was made in China, and bears no indication of the actual manufacturer. Pogo is merely the branding, like on the more famous Time Magazine camera. (Pogo, by the way, is an Indian kids’ channel, which gives you some idea of the target audience.)

The camera was imported and marketed in India by a Mumbai-based company called Mitashi (their name appears on the box, and is also printed on the body itself). The camera I’m using is tomato red, but judging from the pictures on the box, it came in three other colors: blue, pink and yellow. The box also has the month and year of import (July 2007) and the maximum retail price (Rs. 99).

The camera I used for this review actually belongs to my cousin. Her parents bought it for her in 2007, when she was around 14 years old. I believe she shot a couple of rolls with it – family vacations and such – but switched to a digital camera soon afterwards. The Pogo seemed destined to be forgotten.

Last month we were chatting about photography, and she remembered she still has the camera somewhere. Soon the Pogo was retrieved, still in its original box and apparently functional. I had never used a toy camera before, so we thought we’d try it out together. The plan was to go for a walk around my neighborhood, shoot a roll of film and develop it that same evening.

I’m not set up to develop color film at home, so it would have to be B&W. The main limitation, on a winter afternoon with hazy light and lengthening shadows, was the fixed aperture of f/8. I loaded the Pogo with a roll of Ilford HP5 Plus, planning to push to ISO 800. HP5 also has good dynamic range, which I hoped would partly compensate for the lack of exposure control. (In India, a roll of HP5 costs around Rs 600, so it more than trebled the inflation-adjusted price of the camera.)

The sample photos in this article are all from that one roll. They were shot in the space of about two hours in failing light with a toy camera, so I hope you’re not expecting masterpieces. Some photos are by me and some by my cousin. I haven’t indicated who took which, because it doesn’t seem that important. Increasingly I find my photographic interests moving towards collaboration – photo-walks, swapping cameras, engaging with subjects, getting them to participate in the process, giving away prints, and so forth. But that’s a story for another day.

5. Optics, Limitations and Sample Photos

First I’ll show a few photos which illustrate some of the limitations of the camera. With a fixed aperture of f/8, the biggest limitation is lack of low-light capability. Negative film (both B&W and color) handle overexposure relatively well, so too much light is unlikely to be a problem. This is a camera for summer holidays, sunny days by the beach. On a hazy winter afternoon, HP5 pushed to 800 could cope when we were out on the streets, as you can see from the photo of my cousin. But the photo of me on the balcony is underexposed. And the ghostly photo of my mum and aunt, taken in indoor lighting, is essentially unusable.

The Pogo’s single-element, meniscus lens is made of plastic. A very early lens – the historic Wollaston landscape lens (1804) used on camera obscuras – was also a meniscus lens. But unlike the Wollaston which was a rear meniscus lens, toy cameras tend to use a front meniscus – the convex surface faces outwards (rather than towards the film), and the aperture stop is behind (not in front of) the lens.

Meniscus lenses are generally designed to minimize two of the seven deadly optical aberrations – coma (which can be reduced to zero) and field curvature (reduced, but not eliminated).  Spherical aberration is mitigated by the small f-stop, but is still quite prominent. Being highly asymmetrical about the aperture stop – a strongly curved element on one side, no elements at all on the other – meniscus lenses also can’t correct transverse chromatic aberration and distortion. Rear meniscus designs like the Wollaston have barrel distortion, while front meniscus lenses, like on the Pogo, have pincushion distortion. Finally, the simple, uncoated plastic lens is prone to flare.

The photo of the cyclists, taken from the other side of a level crossing, shows many of the ‘defects’ I just listed. The resolution is acceptable in the center but falls apart in the corners – spherical aberration running amok. The railway line at the bottom, which is horizontal in real life, shows marked pincushion distortion. The sun was behind them, so there’s a healthy dose of flare (veiling glare) which reduces overall contrast.

The photos of the bridge and the cat show the extent of flare. They were taken in the same location within a few meters (and a few minutes) of each other. The bridge was shot against the light, facing west, and the cat photo facing east. The difference in contrast is remarkable. To be fair, flare can look interesting on color film, which I have not tried on this camera.

Finally, the bird on the wire also shows how the lens is less sharp in the corners (I colorized and added a slight vignette in Photoshop, but these don’t affect the sharpness). The lens, by the way, seems to have fairly even illumination; it has various issues, but vignetting is not one of them.

Some of these defects can be exploited. In the portrait of the young man, the buckets to the left are blurry – the result of optical aberrations, but it creates a nice selective-focus effect. The deep depth of field is not a problem if the subject is against a dark background, like in the photo of the idol, or the child sucking on a chocolate wrapper while his mother looks on.

6. Toy Camera Aesthetic

I think there are two ways to shoot a camera like the Pogo. The first way produces relatively sharp, technically superior images. Place your subject near the center. Don’t shoot against the sun. Avoid straight lines near the edges of the frame so as not to emphasize distortion. Take pictures in good light, with the subject two meters or more from the camera.

The other way – a better way in my opinion – is to lean into the ‘defects’. Nancy Rexroth, who has done some stunning work with a Diana camera, described her approach in a 1974 Aperture article:

“The photographs in this portfolio were taken in southeastern Ohio with a Diana camera. It cost about $1.50. It is a toy camera that works well. The company also makes a cheaper model that squirts water when you press the shutter. I have developed my own method of hand-holding, sometimes shooting with my eyes closed, using the zone system, dreaming, using five different types of film.“

Now if that’s not a cool artist statement, I don’t know what is.

Personally, I’m not very good at this style of photography. My instinct is to take ‘straight photos,’ but I would like to explore other ways of picture-making. That’s one reason for my interest in homemade pinhole cameras, and toy cameras like the Pogo.

7. Alternatives

Toy cameras can only really be compared with other toy cameras; they are, literally, in a class of their own. And in that class, the Pogo is one of the simplest. However, many of the extra features on other toy cameras are not that appealing to me. For example, the aforementioned Time Magazine camera has a choice of four aperture settings. But its widest aperture is around f/6, which is not much better than the Pogo. Moreover, it has a metal weight glued inside the body to give it a sense of heft. The Pogo is small, light and unpretentious, which I like.

[Image credits: Time Camera by Josh N (cc by-nc 2.0); Jazz 207 by Ross (cc by-nc-sa 2.0); Pokémon by Boxy Brown’s Bling (cc by-nc 2.0).]

Some toy cameras like the Jazz (above) have a fake panorama setting (not something I need) or flash (which requires batteries, making the camera heavier and more complex). And even I draw the line at the Pokémon camera which superimposes cartoon characters on the photo.

Having said all that, there are two simple things I would add to the Pogo if I could: a built-in sliding lens cover, and a hotshoe to mount a small flash unit if one wants to (the toy camera aesthetic pairs well with flash). I think these additions would be useful, but without adding much to the cost, complexity or weight.

This ‘ideal feature set’ does in fact exist, for example on this generic ‘35mm focus free’ camera. A Bulb mode, which appears on some toy cameras, would be amazing… but now I’m just being greedy.

If you’re in the market for a toy camera, Austerity Photo has some great reviews under the fixed-focus tag. Or just look up ‘35mm focus free’ on eBay; they often sell for less than a roll of Kodak Portra. Medium-format toy cameras are also an option, but I have no experience with those.

New cameras are available too, though a bit more expensive. This Austerity Photo article has a roundup of toy cameras in production as of summer 2021, and at least one other camera, the eco-friendly Lensfayre Snap, has since been added to their ranks.

8. Final Thoughts

If you’re into photography (which you presumably are if you got this far!) and have never tried a toy camera, I would recommend it. Worst case, you waste a roll of film. Pass it on to someone else or convert it to a pinhole camera. Or you might get lucky – have a fun time, get some good pictures, and maybe even a new perspective on photography.

I had not used a toy camera either, but thanks to my cousin, I’m glad I had the experience. The simplicity is freeing. Just raise the camera to the eye, compose and click; no need to change settings, or even wait for autofocus to do its thing. Without eye-popping resolution and creamy bokeh to fall back on, it’s a fun challenge to try and take good pictures that rely more on composition and timing.

With more advanced cameras, if I get too hung up on metering, it’s reassuring to remember that we shot a whole roll in changing light at f/8 and 1/100 (film is forgiving, especially with overexposure). If I start taking myself or my photography too seriously, going out on the streets with a bright red plastic camera is as good an antidote as any. And in general, I find it amazing that a device which such basic features (not to mention, a one-element plastic lens!) can produce pictures at all.

The Pogo is not the world’s most rugged camera, but my cousin’s copy is still working 14 years after it was purchased. It has the fun-and-free feel of a disposable camera, while being multi-use and therefore much more eco-friendly. It’s limited in a lot of ways, but you can learn to work around the limitations – or even work with them. And to any possible criticism that you can muster, there is an unanswerable argument: this camera, even when new, cost less than a roll of film.

Get your own toy camera on eBay here

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Let’s turn all this around a bit with yet another pithy aphorism; when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I’d add that when you only have a hammer, you better be pretty good at hitting nails. This long preamble is written in seeking to explain my irrational need to own a camera that uses 120 format film, and some of the results of that need.

I used to own a Mamiya 645 in very decent (maybe even excellent) condition, and I was quite happy with every photograph I made with it. But I didn’t use it very often. One day, upon considering the amount of dust it had collected, and some bullshit that Marie Kondo said in a bestselling book, I decided I should sell it. For no good reason. 

I mean, as a camera it was heavy, and slow, and I could only fit fifteen images on a roll of film, and the film was relatively expensive, and I had to take the film to a place to have it developed because my developing tank was 35mm specific, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to deal with learning how to spool 120 film onto a reel anyway. But when I sold the Mamiya I immediately felt the void left by the lack of owning a 120 film camera. 

In an attempt to fill the void, I typed “Lomography 120” into the internet search engine and within the week I had me a shiny new hammer, I mean, a shiny new 120 film friendly plastic camera called a Lomography Diana F+. I’m not sure what the “F” stands for (it’s probably in the manual, if I cared to look) but my best guess is that it stands for an unprintable word which would change the rating of this article from PG to R; the Diana F+ is an F-ing crappy hammer, and an even worse camera.

[Editor’s note – for those wondering, the F stands for Flash, since the Diana F was the flash-capable upgrade to the original flash-less Diana. Today Lomography produces all sorts of Diana models.]

In the spirit of Mr. Chase Jarvis, and for the sake of this article, for a few days the Diana F+ would be the only camera I had with me. I’m not sure Chase would be happy being saddled on this same horse, his statement to the public about cameras notwithstanding. Any time I was using the Diana F+, I knew I had many better cameras at home. And I often longed for them.

What’s a Lomography Diana F+ and… why?

I have a bit of a history lesson for you, albeit one that’s un-researched and at the mercy of a failing memory, so it’s probably all wrong. Nevertheless, once upon a time there was no such thing as Instagram. Film was grainy and a lot of consumer-level cameras were pretty basic and took kind of bad photographs. Over time, cameras got better and the pictures they made looked more like the actual world we lived in, and less like the color-shifted blurry messes of many film images.

But human beings often manifest cravings for “the good old days.” We began longing for a time when the photos we collected had what could only be identified as “soul.” This really amounted to pictures that were maybe a little out of focus and maybe a little under/over exposed. The film process we were stuck with back then made lovely and romantic, slightly oversaturated mini art pieces, and it warmed our hearts to have these moments frozen in time despite the graininess and lack of detail and unrealistic representation of color that film gave us. Plus, we were all thinner and had more hair in those photographs. Film got better and better.

Then the digital revolution came along. Film cameras and the makers of film had spent a lifetime making products that fixed imaging flaws and more accurately represented reality. Digital cameras captured life flatly, truer to life than any film ever did. Then phone cameras became the dominant life-recorder, capturing every day of our lives without embellishment.

And then, as if we all went mad for nostalgia at once just few years into the raw truism of digital, Instagram arrived. Now we could shortcut the whole process of Lightroom, Aperture, or whatever existed at the time, and, with the push of a button, transform perfect and well exposed digital photographs with incredible detail for a phone camera with a sensor smaller than a pin head into something shot with a bucket and toaster and people loved it. We were back to loving the film look, whatever that is. We loved it so much that Instagram is now worth over $100 billion. Somewhere in the middle of all that, Lomography was born. 

I wasn’t in the board room when the concept of Lomography was proposed and accepted as a viable business consideration, but I imagine the conversation went like this:

“You know photographs, right?”

“Yes.”

“We want to do that, but kind of crappy like.”

“How so?”

“While the world is embracing German and Japanese technological marvels that take perfect photographs, we want to make a camera with interchangeable plastic shims for framing, tight thumb wheels that you have to turn by hand to advance the film until you see the next frame number in a little window in the back of the camera, a vague aperture control on the bottom front of the camera, where you will most likely forget it exists making half your photographs be badly exposed or not exposed at all. Oh, and a vague focusing system that doesn’t allow you to check if what you’re taking a photograph of is in focus. You kind of have to guess.” 

“You think that’s a good idea?”

“Absolutely.” 

“Go for it, but only if you can make the cameras completely out of plastic including the lenses and in a variety of bold colors that will assuredly offend anyone who considers owning one. And we can include a collection of photographs in a hard cover book that suggests brilliant photographs can be taken with this camera, and we don’t even need to use this crap camera to take the pictures in the book. The end user will just have to take it on faith that we used this plastic junk to take those photos and that any crap they come up with is a result of their ineptitude, and not the camera’s fault, even though it’s probably the camera’s fault.” 

“Done.”

Thus, the Lomography Diana F+ was born.

Truthfully, LOMO cameras existed before this. They were originally made by the Soviet Leningrad Optical and Mechanical Association, who made their earliest cameras in the 1930s and who’d eventually amass three Orders of Lenin for their efforts.

The Chinese company Great Wall Plastic Co. would copy the playbook of the Russians. The original Diana was born in Hong Kong in the early 1960s. Throughout this decade and into the 1970s, Great Wall Plastic Co. made their LOMO-like toy camera in 120 format out of cheap plastic. By the 1980s, the Diana ceased production. When the word “Lomagraphy” was trademarked by the Lomographic Society International (Lomographische AG) in Austria, they reintroduced a whole new range of Diana cameras to market. 

Practical Use and Thoughts on the Diana F+

Well, anyway, I have a Lomography Diana F+ camera. I bought it used and it’s the black and blue color variant, and it cost me $40 Canadian. It came with the original box and the hard cover book that was packaged with it, and I figured at the very least the book was worth ten dollars. The person I bought it from said she ran exactly one roll of film through it. I imagine that’s how most Diana F+ experiences pan out, despite the fact that, as I write this, I’ve run six rolls through mine. 

There is nothing about the Diana F+ that will instill any confidence in the user in regards to how the photographs may or may not turn out. There is a sense of disbelief that the little toggle to the right of the lens does anything at all, though it is in fact the shutter release. You will fight the flimsy film advancement wheel and you will think you hear the film being torn apart inside the camera as you advance it. You will look for the next number in the sequence of frames to appear in the little red window on the back of the camera signifying you’ve done your part in advancing to the next frame. You will have no faith in the framing of your subject through a joke of a viewfinder, and you will trigger the shutter, and move on. Maybe you got a picture. Maybe you didn’t. 

I kind of wanted to hate this camera. I wanted to be offended by the quirkiness, the “camp” qualities of the object. I wanted to be embarrassed by the bright blue plastic body of the Diana. I wanted to loathe the pseudo artsy images it produced and to be angry at the vignetting you get from the Diana F-ing plastic lens. I wanted to rail against its crap build quality. I wanted to finally declare it was a piece of junk. But I didn’t. 

Don’t get me wrong, the Diana F+ is indeed a crap bit of kit, but in the end it doesn’t promise to be anything more than that. As of the writing of this article you can buy the Fujifilm Instax variant of the Diana (in the same offensive blue as mine) for just $99 Canadian ($68US-ish), or a 35mm film compatible fisheye-capable piece of garbage for $69 Canadian (under $50 US) brand-spanking-new. The only expensive-ish Diana you can buy is the Diana F+ “DELUXE” kit, which includes a whole mess of hot garbage, like four interchangeable “lenses,” various color filters for no good reason, and something called a “splitzer.” That’s a lot of stuff.

Any self-respecting photographer will get sick of the novelty of this camera in about a month, or six rolls of film – whichever comes first. At least, I did. But in the end, the whole deal costs less than a good night at the bar, and as much as you’ll be embarrassed to admit it, you’re going to like the photos you get. And when you’re done with it you can use the camera to pound some nails. It’s a terrible hammer, and an even worse camera. But I’m glad I own one. 

Post Script 

I found myself at the film lab picking up the last roll of film I had put through the Diana F+, and because I had loved/hated the experience I thought, what the heck, two more rolls of Portra 400 please, I’ll give this camera a bit more time. I got home, scanned the film, and loaded up the Diana F+ with a fresh roll. The film I picked up from the lab was as pleasing as ever with quirky, badly exposed squares of film with strangely out of focus bits, and a general loveliness of an undefinable quality. The last two images were a bit more out of focus than the rest, but not offensively so. This is what we will call “foreshadowing.” 

I went for a walk with the Diana and then, as photographers are wont to do, I found a thing that I wanted to take a picture of. I retrieved the Diana F+ from my bag, removed the lens cap, composed the shot, and then remembered the need to focus and adjust the aperture. This was when I discovered the lens, well, it was simply gone. Gone missing. Nothing left where the little piece of plastic had once been except a gaping hole. Realizing I was religious about keeping the lens cap on when not in use I knew it had to be nearby. And there it was, on the ground, staring up at me, half of a broken Lomography Diana F+ lens laying in the grass. 

I’m the second owner of this camera on my seventh roll of film. This added to the one roll the previous owner had shot brought my Lomography Diana F+ up to a lifetime total of eight rolls. And I had worn it out. 

Here’s some quick, inaccurate math (all in Canadian dollars); $40 for the camera, plus seven rolls of film (about $98) times twelve exposures per roll, and another $60 for developing. We’re looking at about $2.35 per frame, and I still have the hardcover book, right? 

As an extreme comparison, take a Leica M Type 240 and a Summilux 35mm f/1.4. The cost of that kit divided by $2.35/picture means you’d have to take about 9,000 photographs to break even, and I’d argue there is a much greater ratio of “keepers” in the Lomography photographs than from the typical digital camera. 

But it’s not really about the math, right? There’s an intangible quality to the Lomography Diana F+ photographs; something that one might argue isn’t possible with a modern Leica, or even traditional film cameras, and that adds value in some odd way. The fact that the camera is essentially garbage after seven or eight rolls of film is not important. I won’t be buying another. But still, no regrets.

One last note for the record – I own a Stiletto titanium hammer. I take my hammers seriously.

Get your own Lomography Diana F+ used on eBay

Buy it new from B&H Photo here

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[Some of the links in this article will direct users to our affiliates at B&H Photo, Amazon, and eBay. By purchasing anything using these links, Casual Photophile may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you. This helps Casual Photophile produce the content we produce. Many thanks for your support.]

The post A Sort Of Review of the Lomography Diana F+ appeared first on Casual Photophile.

Oh God, not again. I recoiled as he held it out to me. It was that camera. The one with slippery metal clamps on the side, the off center viewfinder, and the flash that never worked. I thought I was being pranked.

“Do you want it?” he repeated. “I’m probably going to throw it away if you don’t take it.”

Free cameras are often tempting, but it’s different when you and the camera in question already have a history. I sold mine years ago out of frustration with its terrible build quality and penchant for wasting rolls of film. But the difference between then and now was that I now write for a camera website, and the Holga hasn’t been covered yet.

“Sure.” I replied, turning the camera over in my hands. “I’ll see what I can do with it.” I looked at the nameplate; HOLGA 120 SF. Yep. Here we go again.

Needless to say, the Holga and I haven’t always gotten along. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t like clunky, minimalistic cameras. In fact, I really like the idea of making great images with a virtually featureless machine. So what’s the deal with the Holga? Let’s start from the beginning.

The Holga is a plastic toy camera invented and manufactured in Hong Kong in the early ‘80s. It was intended as an inexpensive all-purpose camera for the Chinese working class, a market which at the time preferred medium format film. But the introduction of the Holga coincided with the growth of the Chinese middle class who could purchase slightly more expensive 35mm film, making the medium format Holga obsolete.

Obsolescence, however, was hardly the death knell we might expect for this humble plastic camera. Seeing no future in its home market, the makers began to market the Holga to the West as a quirky, unpredictable toy camera. Photo geeks soon discovered that the Holga had a knack for producing dreamy, intense images, images that were a far cry from the tack-sharp, clinically perfect images produced by autofocus machines of the day. And at a time when it felt like camera technology (and technology in general) alienated old-school shooters with every innovation, the Holga stood defiant with its simple meniscus lens and homely plastic body. For many, the Holga evolved to become a symbol of resistance to the all-consuming technological boom of the late 20th century.

The myth of the Holga spread quickly and the ensuing Holgamania gripped the photographic world for much of the 2000s. Shooters from all over flocked to the chunky black box in the hopes that they could make art with the camera’s unique lo-fi aesthetic. But the Holga’s reign had to end at some time, and it eventually did. Fascination with the camera seemed to wane at the beginning of the 2010s, and almost as if on cue, the factory that manufactured Holgas closed its doors in late 2015, signaling the end of the Holga era.

But as any good classic camera lover knows, these things don’t die easily. The Holga has since been revived by another Chinese manufacturer (at a slightly increased price), but whether or not its reputation can be restored remains to be seen. This begs the question; is the Holga still relevant in 2017?

There’s not much to be found on a Holga. It’s a medium format scale focus camera equipped with a wide 60mm f/8 lens and a rotary shutter that stays fixed at about 1/100th of a second. Newer Holgas have added one additional aperture setting and a bulb mode, but the basic design remains virtually unchanged from its early, austere self.

Thankfully, the Holga is a camera that is more than the sum of its parts. It would have to be; its parts individually aren’t worth much, if anything. Almost everything on the Holga is made of cheap plastic except for the shutter spring, the shutter plate, and the strap lugs/door latches and even those are made of the cheapest metal. Its overall design is similarly economical, which basically means that it’s terrible. But like Plan 9 from Outer Space or The Room, it’s so terrible that it’s entertaining.

For example, the viewfinder doesn’t even come close to matching the actual frame recorded by the Holga’s 60mm f/8 single element lens. It’s too far off center and shows a much narrower field of view than the lens actually covers. To make matters worse, the “aperture control” on older Holgas doesn’t actually work. The aperture hole in the aperture selector arm in older Holgas is larger than the smallest hole in the light path, which restricts shooting to an aperture of about f/10. Additionally, the Holga’s frame window counter combined with its poor build quality means the camera leaks more light than the Titanic did water.

But the most hilarious design flaw is found in the Holga’s strap lugs, which double as back door latches. If you hook up a strap to these lugs and let the camera drop around your neck, the weight of the machine will cause the latches to no longer function as latches. The back flies off and your precious six dollar roll of film is wasted. So don’t put too much pressure on the camera’s strap.

The funny thing about the Holga’s design is that it cuts so many corners that we end up with a perfect circle. In other words, it’s because of its deeply flawed design that the Holga became so appealing. The Holga’s limiting nature forced shooters to rely on their wit and creativity to make compelling images, making the camera a firm favorite with educators as well as with fine art photographers.

But wait, couldn’t any badly made toy camera with a plastic lens do the exact same thing the Holga does? Not exactly. Yes, toy cameras can make delightfully quirky images if used correctly, but few can make the surreal, intense images that are the Holga’s exclusive domain and the reason for its fame.

The Holga accomplishes this by being the most perfect storm of bad design and accidental ingenuity in photography. Its poor build quality results in the Holga’s beautiful light leaks which streak across images like errant paintbrush strokes. The single-element 60mm meniscus lens distorts images into looking like they were taken in an alternate reality. And perhaps best of all, the camera uses medium format film which enables the Holga to make surprisingly sharp photos with beautiful depth.

The Holga built its fame upon being an incredibly lovable piece of junk, but there’s a steep price to pay for using the camera. Shooters will have to contend with the Holga’s penchant for random failure. Shutters have been known to stick and destroy perfectly good exposures, and a lack of padding behind the film spools can make film wind on loosely, fogging up entire rolls of film. And worst of all, the aforementioned back door latches can and will fail if left unchecked.

Although these problems can be remedied by a number of simple DIY mods, the fact that these problems threaten the very existence of your images on film is damning. Shooting an unmodified Holga (which many first-time shooters will) is a dangerous proposition, one that can turn prospective shooters off from the Holga. And it’s this thing that turned me off from using the Holga in the first place. Too many of my rolls of film were unknowingly wasted at the outset because I wasn’t in the know about the velcro mod or the foam mod. The camera’s usage of more expensive medium format film also meant that I was out a good amount of money every single time the Holga decided to fail.

But what may be the Holga’s greatest flaw is that its unique look has, in 2017, become anything but unique. Through a combination of Holga-inspired Instagram filters and the widespread popularity of the Holga itself, the Holga look has been pasted so indiscriminately onto everything in the past couple of decades that the look has lost any meaning it once had. What was once profoundly surreal in the Holga has, through over-saturation, become nothing more than a cliché.

However, in my second run with this aloof machine, I did catch a glimpse of the camera’s initial appeal. Even if the look is a little played out, one can still use the Holga to achieve the kind of unsettling visual effect that remains its calling card. And after all the analysis, it’s still extremely satisfying to have simply dodged all the pitfalls and come out victorious with a good image at the end.

Have we beat the Holga look to death? Sure. But that doesn’t mean that it’s completely useless. I’m sure any shrewd photographer with a good creative vision could use a Holga to powerful effect and rescue it from the jaws of the shark it long ago jumped. Maybe if we used these things for what they are instead of what they represent, we’d get the kind of profound images we know this camera is capable of making. After all, that’s how the lowly Holga became famous in the first place.

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