Holga 60mm f/8 Lens for Canon DSLR (Black)

I love this little lens. It's super fun to shoot with, it's pretty sturdy, and looks good.

This lens is a lot of fun. It takes me back to my photography days about 40+ years ago. Plastic cameras to take on vacation. Now I'm back into photography with a vengeance, so I had to add this to my collection. I even have a Holga Filter Wheel coming from Hong Kong. I have enough lenses to shoot the norm, but I like being able to be more creative. That's why I'm into Lensbaby's also. This lens has a 60mm focal length, but with my crop sensor camera with a multiplier of 1.6x, I now have a 96mm focal length. So on to picture taking. Surprisingly it takes good pictures. The pictures are slightly soft, but it IS a plastic lens. At f/8 this lens is better used outdoors or in good light. Remember, this lens is manual. There is no pressing the preview button to view the shot. Also, the aperture ring is stiff to turn. Set it to infinity and forget it ;-). I have taken around 100 shots of desert landscapes, sunsets and sunsets reflecting on the mountains before posting this review. What I have learned is that I need to look at my histogram more. ;-). Lots of my shots are overexposed, but what I have learned is that because it is a plastic lens, you can capture sun bursts. Chromatic aberrations; neat effect. My proud picture is of a sunset reflecting on the mountains. With the slightly soft effect and the vignetting, this picture wasn't even considered for post-processing. For this kind of money, how could you go wrong. 5 stars for fun.

Okay, let's be honest here. From most carriers an iPhone 4 is free with contract, and Instagram is a free download. For your $25, you are giving a fairly expensive camera the ability to take ridiculously bad pictures that a cell phone cam, even on its worst day, can't lowball. But that's why you're considering a Holga lens to begin with, right? This obviously isn't an everyday shooting lens. The fixed aperture is very small, small enough to render the viewfinder almost but not quite useless. The focus mechanism is rudimentary and feels like panning on a cheap tripod. The build quality is... Chinese. And I don't mean "built-to-someone-else's-spec-with-dubious-labor-practices" Chinese; I mean "the stuff you find in the toy aisle at the dollar store" Chinese. "Crap" is the term we are going with here. Even disposables take better pictures than this. It's not so much a prime lens as a "grade D but edible" lens. But again, that's the point. The whole Lomography mentality, slickly marketed as it is, is to make the most out of intentionally substandard equipment. It's a constrained art form, very close to found art and musique concrete in its conception, and if all you want to do is play with it, this is the perfect way to get started. The pictures are obviously a bit fuzzy; the vignetting on an APS-C sensor is pretty soft (although I hear it's actually a little excessive on a full-frame sensor), and the focus capability just isn't that precise. As a video lens, it gives the impression of a dream sequence or a piece of slightly-deteriorated film dubbed onto a cheap VHS cassette. Because of the small aperture, it doesn't do low light well at all; you'll definitely want to use an external flash for any indoor shots. And the markings could be better -- the focus marker and mount guide mark are easily confused. So... after all is said and done, if you know what you're ordering, this lens delivers exactly what you expect from a Holga product. It's not out of the realm of possibility that you might prefer to do this kind of thing in post, which is a reasonably sensible approach, but I find with my personal work that if I don't set up the effects I want to use beforehand, I won't usually get to them later. So if you want to play with the toy camera aesthetic, this is as good a way as any to get into it.

You get what you pay for but this is a great lens for faking old 8mm film footage! -1 star: I didn't realize that the back cap was tiny and broke it by twisting the back mounting ring (what I thought was the back cap) from the front focus section, past its limits (wasn't hard to do)! I removed the broken tab inside, screwed it back together and it works fine - just don't turn it too far. It would have been better if they included a back cap that fits all Canon EF mounts, instead of just its tiny back area where the tiny lens is so you don't mistake where the cap is. HOWEVER - this is a fun little lens! With gotchas. The back lens is tiny and features 6 holes that all reduce light quite a bit and warp (on purpose) the image. This will only work well in well lit places. At 400 ISO and with the iris on my Canon 70D wide open, it did OK on a cloudy day. It vignettes heavily, but not evenly. If you focus to close objects, it kind of looses the vignetting and instead starts to look like 4 grey circles in the corners. Not great; could be fixed by applying a vignette in your video editor. BUT if you focus all the way to distant objects, the vignetting looks almost genuine AND you get much more light. PLUS, it actually focuses reasonably on close objects when you set it to distant objects anyway. I don't see myself ever setting the focus to near, as distant gives more light, and a great cheesy 1970s 8mm look with reasonable focus at any distance. I've got plans for some of my music videos with this lens! It's a keeper! Just be careful with it - ITS CHEAP! (which is kind of its purpose)

It's nice. It gives your pictures an antique touch. However, it's more like a toy. I wouldn't use it for professional photography.

I love post processing and I love vintage film photography so after a shoot (even a small one) with my (moderately) expensive gear I spend a hefty amount of time processing the photos, often selecting a few well composed photos to turn into vintage photos. I also love the sort of story told by much older lenses or, even, toy lenses--the emotions they evoke can be very powerful. So, having spent many a wee hour making photos taken on expensive camera gear looking like they were taken on crappy camera gear I thought I should stop mucking around, cut out the middle man and just turn my expensive camera gear into cheap crappy camera gear. Enter the HL-C! So, anyone interested in vintage photography will have heard of Holga and the gloriously distorted, colour burnt, heavily vignetted moments they capture. Whilst this lens is undoubtedly 'crappy' it is perhaps not crappy enough! When it arrived I rushed home from work and had 15 minutes or so before the house would fill up. I feverishly jammed it onto my 650d (yes it's plastic but it feels fine and solid going on the camera), put the shutter and aperture at fairly neutral settings (it wont make a great deal of difference anyway), headed outside on an overcast English early-evening and started snapping. Having read reviews I thought it would struggle in the dim light but it sucked in plenty of light! The 60mm (on a crop sensor camera) is good length for snapping things and the simple-to-understand focussing ring (4 settings--fairly close, portrait, group portrait and mountain!) doesn't do much so there was no real need to worry too much about focussing. Even on a cloudy day it was clear enough in the viewfinder to 'attempt' to focus. I did try it indoors and no, dont bother. (you can find the results of a no-thought quick shoot on my flickr stream). So, the most important bit, what did these first few rushed shots come out like? Well, they may not be for everyone but if story telling is more important to you than crystal clear sharp images then you'll enjoy this lens. To be honest, at 15 quid or so you weren't really expecting to hit the front covers were you? But, there is no reason why you couldn't. For me, photography is story telling and this lens tells stories. Sometimes it tells stories from 30 years ago but that is part of the point. The colours are wonderfully vibrant at times, muted in other places. Playing with colours produces a multitude of results as the lens saturates colours differently as they pass through it. The end result is simply wonderful. Purples, yellows, limes, even reds, all are usually fantastically vibrant. The grain is excessive and attempts to post-process these photos beyond any additional cropping are fairly futile, it is what is it and the images are what they are. Post sharpening--don't bother, embrace the wonderfully soft and grainy finish. Post colour balancing--again, don't bother, this is part of the glory of this lens. Post spot removal--don't worry about spots on your photos, leave them, it's too grainy anyway. In short: * This lens will not be for everyone but I suspect that those who like this lens will love this lens. * Your technique is stripped back to only composition and because you are zooming with your feet you are an even more active part of the scene. * Mundane becomes interesting with little photographer skill. * Your mindset as a photographer changes as you embrace the challenges this lens throws at you. * For £15 this is a fun addition to your kit.

Obiettivo carino, è un giocattolo rispetto ad altri obiettivi, ma l'effetto delle fotografie è molto simpatico! Consigliato a chi ama togliersi degli sfizi!

nice

I bought this on a whim to use when heading out to shoot areas I frequently visit and continue to challenge myself with new ideas. This did not let me down! You have to understand what you’re getting (imperfect lens with lots of flaws in the image), but it open s up a whole new way to look at the world. If you are considering it, take the plunge!

It’s very good