{Picture Perfect} Digital Lomography Toy Lenses

If you saw my September Favorites, you know that I recently purchased a bunch of new “toy” lomography lenses for my DSLR. Go ahead, call me a Hipster, but I actually really enjoy lo-fi photography and that whole lomography movement in artistic photography isn’t going away, in fact I think it’s  only getting stronger. In case you’re reading this and asking yourself what lomography is, let me sum it up for you. Lomography is basically an artistic photographic style that values the aesthetic of analog cameras. It’s been something of a movement since the advent of digital photography, preserving the artistic experience of film photography. You may be familiar with the plastic “toy” cameras sold at Urban Outfitters, such as the Diana and the Holga, throwbacks to a dying age dominated by film, or at least you are familiar with the many Instagram filters that can give you that analog film camera look with just a tap of a finger! Well, good news, you can actually buy lenses for your DSLR that have been made by Diana and Holga to give you that great vintage quality in your digital images, and I am going to talk about four of those that I purchased and have been testing and give you my feedback in case you also want to give these lenses a try. I recently took all four of my new toys out with me while I went apple picking and shopping in a quaint little country town near my home. This little experiment on a bright sunny day, gave me the ability to test the lenses in optimal lighting conditions.

Now, keep in mind, these lenses are called “toy” lenses for a reason. They are plastic (for the most part) and not made to be high quality optics. They also only cost me an average of $25-30 each, so they are definitely not pro lenses, but for DSLR owners who also enjoy the lomo look or would like inexpensive lenses to play around with, they are an option out there, and options are good! Another thing to keep in mind is that because these are cheap plastic lenses, they don’t have any sorts of electrical mechanisms that speak to your DSLR body, so you will need to shoot in manual when using these lenses. Your camera will act like there is no lens connected to the body, so depending on the camera you have, you will lose certain features as well, but if you are comfortable or knowledgable in shooting  manual, you shouldn’t have any problems. I kept my DSLR in manual with my ISO set to auto (because these lenses don’t have large apertures to let in much light). I also kept my shutter speed as slow as I could without causing blur, again, in order to help increase the amount of light getting in through the lens. Finally, I also used the Live View mode on my display as opposed to shooting through the view finder. In certain situations, you just can’t be sure of the lighting and live view (as least until your comfortable shooting in the lighting/environment you have) will help!

Holga

I purchased two lenses made by Holga. The first is their 60mm f/8 Lens, which is the same lens that you would find on a standard Holga camera, but made with a special mount to fit a DSLR. Because these are lo-fi, basically analog lenses, they can’t do things like autofocus, so you have manual control of that by twisting a ring on the outside of the lens that has some convenient little non-specific images that denote portrait, family, group, and infinity! It’s not precise, but it’s also not rocket science! The lens definitely skews on the dark side, and has a good amount of vignetting, but overall, I thought it gave me some of the best “vintage inspired” results out of all four of the lenses. To me, it produced the sorts of images that I might see while flipping through the pages of my grandmothers scrapbook and it’s actually given me a few awesome family photo ideas to work on for the holidays.

TL;DR: Authentically vintage, albeit tricky to use. Will continue to play with it for fun effects!

 The second of the two Holga lenses I tested was the Pinhole.  This lens is says its 25mm, but since it is just a tiny pin sized hole, there isn’t anything you need to adjust and no way to focus. If you have ever used a pinhole camera before, you know that it’s all about controlling the light with these because their aperture is nothing more than a teeny tiny hole that lets in next to no light. This one was probably my least favorite out of all the lenses I tested, and for good reason. Even on a super bright and sunny day, this lens was still overly dark, and I believe the ISO for this picture was at least 400-600, while the shutter was 1/60. In the typical pinhole fashion, you can certainly make out the heavy vignette circle around the image created by the tiny hole, which I do think adds a really interesting vintage feel, but this is the sort of lens that has a time and a place to use and for me, I don’t find I have many reasons to use it!

TL;DR: Lens is way to dark to use on a regular basis, won’t be bringing it out again unless I have a great concept to shoot.

Diana F+

Now on to the Diana lenses. These one’s are a little more unique because they are the actual lenses that fit onto Diana F+ Cameras. In order to fit them to your DSLR, you need to purchase an adaptor that connects the lens to your camera body. Downside of these lenses is that the adaptor is only available for Canon and Nikon cameras (unlike the Holga lenses which are actually made to directly fit a few different camera manufacturers). Now, the first Diana Lens I want to talk about is the 38mm Super Wide Angle. In comparison to the other three lenses, this one felt the most plastic-y. The Holga’s were actually made from quite a hard sturdy plastic, but this Diana lens felt light and wobbly like it may just break apart- but good news, it didn’t! Even after much in and out of my bag and traveling around, it held up, it just felt unstable! This lens is also the largest out of the toy lenses I purchased. It too, like the Holga 60mm, has a focusing ring with a very non-precise system of focus measuring, but again, once you got used to using it, you sort of understood the focusing distances. The thing that is quite interesting about this lens is that it creates some very interesting effects with the light. The Diana F+ is often dubbed the Dreamy Diana, because of the soft, ethereal lighting effects that it creates. This lens works well in situations where you have a lot of lighting contrast, so a bright sunny day was a good time to shoot with it, or conversely, I would also love to take this out into the city at night and capture the electric city lights and signs that brighten the night (it’s on my to do list)! Because of the dreamy lighting effects, I actually think that I prefer to use this lens for video as opposed to photography. I played around with it while we were apple picking and I loved the vintage feel of the scene as the light danced around in glowing blobs! Overall, it wasn’t a terrible lens and I found the artistic quality of it to be very lovely!

TL;DR: Feels cheap, but gives a unique artistic feel. Best for creating vintage inspired video, in my opinion.

Now to the final lens, and you can say I saved the best for last! This final lens is the Diana 75mm Premium Glass Lens. Yes, I said premium glass. Again, this is a lens that was made for Diana F+ Cameras, sort of as an upgrade to the cheap plastic made lenses that come standard with the camera in order to bring more sharpness to the film photo’s. Out of all the lenses, it was my favorite, but it was also about twice the price of the others. First, let’s address the construction of this lens because it’s a little odd and a bit of a juxtaposition with the term premium glass. Yes, the optical element of this lens is glass, but the body is still plastic, albeit a much sturdier plastic than the 35mm Super Wide. It’s a relatively small lens, that definitely has a more premium look to it than the others, however, it has the strangest manual focus. Instead of the focus ring being placed outside the body of the camera, this one is actually located in the front center of the lens, right around the glass, which makes it awkward to adjust. People with large hands and fingers may find it a pain to focus this way, I found it a pain and I have small hands and fingers, but I will say that this odd focusing ring actually lends itself to an overall positive experience with the lens. As you can see from the sample images I took, this lens is sharp. It produces clear, crisp images once you can get the lens in the proper focus. You have to remember, this is a 75mm lens, so it lends itself to being more of a portrait style lens by nature, and personally, I find that it’s the sort of lens I want to use when I’m taking stills of friends, or I’m on a nature hike, walking at a leisurely pace and photographing flowers and plants. I know that may sound weird, but the fact that you have to take a moment to finger the focus to the appropriate spot means you need to take a moment to stop and think about the shot. I think that slower paced, more thought process driven method of shooting is actually very important and a great opportunity to learn more about your own style of photography. For the size and the price and the quality combined, I have no excuse not to keep this little guy with me!

TL;DR: Good quality lens with relatively sharp optics and small form factor. Is now a staple in my camera bag. 

I hope you guys found this installment of Picture Perfect to be helpful and informative. I would say that although most of these lenses aren’t wonderful quality, the fact that they are pretty inexpensive is reason enough to pick one up if you are a DSLR owner who maybe only owns a real lens or two. I could imagine that if you are reading this, you most likely only own an entry-level DSLR with the kit lens, so these loom lenses are a fun way to mix up your photography, especially if you want to pick up the 75mm because that focal length is a pretty good one to own and for the price, you can’t beat it! Even if you’re not so into photography, I think these lenses would actually make really great gifts for friends, family and loved ones who may be interested in photography and own a DSLR! Especially students because I think they would get a lot out of playing with these sorts of artistic/creative lo-fi lenses!