Fun With Toy Cameras

As much as I like my new Sony Alpha 100 Digital SLR, or the wonderful Minolta Maxxum 7 film SLR, or even the classic Kodak Retina IIIc, there is something novel about using a twenty dollar, all-plastic (including the lens) camera like the Holga. Considered by many to be a toy camera, along with the classic Diana, and many single element vintage cameras such as the Kodak Brownie Hawkeye, Agfa Clack, Anscoflex, the Holga provides an artistic, silhouetted image that is unique to each individual camera. With a single shutter speed of around 1/100 and a single aperture of f8 the Holga makes medium format shooting quick and simple. I like to have one loaded with either BW or Color 120 film just sitting in my camera bag ready to be used whenever the bug hits me. For bright outside scenes ISO 100 is sufficient, if lower light situations are more common for your brand of shooting, I’d suggest using ISO 400 film.

Other even cheaper possibilities are the vintage Kodak Brownie Hawkeye, Agfa Clack or any number of Kodak, Ansco or Agfa box cameras. In fact the Kodak Brownie Hawkeye provides even sharper images than the Holga, in my opinion. I and many others also consider the popular Lubitel 166 line of TLR’s as toy cameras even though they feature a three-element glass lens. The body is plastic and let’s face it the lens is only sharpest (term used loosely) at f8 or f11. The Beacon 225 is another useable ‘toy’ camera with its Doublet lens and molded Bakelite body. Occasionally it’s just fun to turn your back on all of the switches, features, settings, bells and whistles of modern photographic equipment and succumb to the sublime simplicity of toy cameras. I’ve compiled a small gallery of toy camera images, and another great resource for this type of shooting is ToyCamera.com.