The Holga D – Filmital

There’s nothing quite so intriguing as the lengths technology is pushed in order to recreate something where the main attraction was the total lack of technology. The Holga toy camera is a fine example of an almost cult like photographic weapon, where randomness and accident are the main awards. So now some chap has gone and tried to digitise this haphazard process:

There’s no screen to give instant gratification of your shot, the focus is just as primitive as it was, and the aperture and shutter speed, while more adjustable than before still leave a lot to be desired. Apparently it will have random light leaks and vignetting too.

It’s actually quite clever in its complete lack of cleverness.

One of the interesting things about it is he wants to make it all open source. The real question is whether it’s just a complicated way of adding what basically amounts to a digital filter, (we are suspicious of the ‘randomness’) and could you in fact get half the way there by bashing the screen on the back of your point and shoot?

Technology has already opened up photography to many people who would otherwise have never had the chance to experiment, will it one day recreate the wonderful feeling of picking your film up and discovering they lost a roll and half of them are crap?