HOLGA 60mm

[alaios]

Hi
I had a look on ebay and these look to be rather cheap plastic lenses... they look to be kind of creative lenses but I am not sure at which sense.
Has anyone tried something like that ?

Regards
A

[dan_]

I don't have it but, from what I can see on the NET, it can hardly be named "cretive".
A creative lens has a nice and particular balance between aberrations/sharpness/bokeh/color&contrast.
This Holga 60mm f/8 lens has a lot of aberrations, no real sharpness but also no real softness , boring bokeh (at f/8 maximum opening you can't ask for more),no separation between subject & background (again, at f/8...), below average color and contrast, e.t.c.
The strong vignetting it produces can hardly be "creative" and can be easily made in PS.
So, what's left? The strong flare?
At ~30$ it is an over-valued lens (in fact, it's over-valued at any price, I think )
The cheap Chinese TV lenses, projection lenses or simple meniscus lenses can really be "creative" and they are in the same price range (more or less).

I'm definitely not a Holga fan but if it can bring joy to someone - that's a good thing, even if I may not really understand how.

[BurstMox]

I also agree, it does nothing special exept vignetting.

For the same price, you can have Fujian 35mm/1.7 (new) in C-mount, which is way more "creative".

[Lloydy]

Why use a crappy lens to take a picture of a certain style, and be limited to taking crappy pictures from a crappy lens, when you can use a good lens and use it creatively to achieve that same style?

I looked at the Lomography web site recently and I was appalled by the rip off prices, it's nothing short of exploitation. I have no problem with the Lomography style and look, it's something that is an artistic view of photography and image making. Indeed, I like a lot of what I see in Lomography, but selling cameras and lenses on the premise that your pictures will automatically be 'lomography / artistic' is just a rip off. You could rip the light seals from a Leica and smear vaseline on the lens and get the same effect, but 'effect' doesn't make 'art'.