Crappy Photos

The Lensbaby is a manual focus lens that gets progressively out of focus as you move away from the sweet spot in the centre. To make it even more interesting, the lens can be "bent," so the sweet spot (the in-focus part) does not have to be in the centre of the image. The f-stop is changed by swapping out metal discs. To top off the fun, two different macro filters can be added.

The Holga is a cheap 120 film toy camera known for blurry pictures, light leaks, and heavy vignetting. Entire portfolios of images made with Holgas have appeared in fine art photography magazines.

The Holga images presented here are NOT created with a Holga because, you know, film. They are imposters, created during post-processing using a Holga filter. This is my (lazy) way of exploring this unusual area of photography.

I considered the image titled "Bending Tree" to be a failure. Shot with a Canon Powershot S70 in a bobbing kayak, it was less than sharp. But somehow -- at least to my eyes -- being "crappified" with the Holga simulation brought the image to life (but hopefully not in a Frankenstein sort of way).

The Pinwide is a 22 mm (equivalent) ~f/128 pinhole "lens" for micro 4/3 cameras. It has virtually infinite depth of field. Exposures start at one second for ISO 100 in full sunlight, and go up from there, so a tripod is recommended. Unless you want to go full-crap, in which case just hold on to that camera.