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The Holga camera was designed by T. M. Lee in 1981, and first appeared outside China in 1982 with its appearance in Hong Kong. At the time, 120 roll film in black-and-white was the most widely available film in mainland China. The Holga was intended to provide an inexpensive mass-market camera for working-class Chinese in order to record family portraits and events.

The camera itself is nothing to shout about, its cheap, badly made, it has a ridiculous plastic lens and leaks light like theres no tomorrow. If it was the titanic its leaks would have sunk it in seconds

However, this is where your perception of logic are put into question. Its cheap and awful construction are the very reasons this little camera is quite possibly one of the best, and most fun to use toy cameras on the market, it produces stunning surreal and dream like photographs. Its also the reason why fine art photographers love it so much, and the reason behind its massive cult following within the photography world. Photos taken by Holga cameras have even won awards and competitions in art and news photography.

"Your crazy" i hear you shriek, as if being bludgeoned to death by some Holga wielding serial killer...

No, no, no... far from it. I too was a skeptic saying such things as "something as cheap and nasty as this can't possibly produce anything worth mentioning".

How wrong i was.

I purchased my Holga, about 18 month ago, since then i have produced roll after roll of amazing 120 film (black and white of course) with some staggering results, which, once scanned in to a PC, colour inverted and blown up would happily adorn the walls of any fine art collectors wall.

This little camera is indeed a wolf in peasants clothing. It produces images, no other camera can produce, its flaws help to make the camera what it is, with out them it would just be another toy camera. The camera produces images of a distinctive nature, images are always vignette around the edges, have mostly sharp centers but with a dream like soft focus in most other areas. light leaks and other defects, such as lens scratches can cause other effects. Some photographers like these effects, some don't. I personally eliminate the light leaks with a simple mod, which will follow in another post.

Overall this little piece of engineering awfulness, because of its flaws is a really great camera. Its simple to use with only the shutter button, four focal lengths and two aperture settings. And its best selling point... The pictures it produces. I was so taken by the images, i even use it sometimes for artistic shots at weddings. Its also a good inexpensive starter camera if you fancy having a go at developing your own film (i will have a tutorial on film development soon).

I also hope this post has helped to either convert you over to the Holga or inspired you to go get a Holga and start your own experimentation.

Happy Snapping.