4 Really Cheap Toy Lenses You Should Try

With serious photographic artists doing everything they can to turn their backs on blandly pristine digital primness, it's a joy to see someone covering these funny little things. I've heard of photographers who are ashamed to be seen out with them - "my Pro DSLR with something plastic on it that cost £20" was the gist of what somebody wrote. For me. that's part of the fun; as is seeing members of the public lose interest in you (meaning more spontaneous shots) when they've concluded you're probably a joke. Not that you should expect photography with these to be plain sailing, or as luxuriously easy as work with equipment that costs thousands. A lot of what you produce will be a disaster. But then, when you've learnt the ropes, you'll have just a few shots which with a bit of tweaking are a revelation. Faint praise? Hardly, when you consider that the thumbnails I upload here were made with equipment that cost less than £50 all in. Your first attempts with the Holga Fisheye will probably be blank or black and will stay so, unless you experiment with a tripod or else a camera with phenomenally high ISO settings. Keep the tripod, though: as it will ensure basic sharpness (such little as you can expect) combined with some delicious motion blurs. I've even used it to make HD footage in Trafalgar Square. Rich colours in bright sunshine, or else in city twilight, fare best. The other image here, of a London graveyard, was from the majestically-named Neewer Digital High Definition 0.45x Super Wide Angle. I made sure to use both parts screwed together, and I was prepared for some Photoshop to eliminate the inevitable vignetting. The only disappointment, for me, was the Lomo kit. It depends on the size of your sensor but with many digital cameras, including my Canon 70D, the results will be much less wide-angled than they're supposed to be, or barely a fisheye at all. These are best left to the owners of true Lomo cameras, replete with their equally funny film. Lomo, it's true, are beginning to do phenomenal things. The new Lomography Daguerreotype Achromat 2.9/64 Art Lens seems set to produce some of the most memorable portraits we might have seen in years. But then, costing as much as a holiday, that's scarcely a toy, is it? [epzimg]265944_1463096037.jpg[/epzimg] [epzimg]265944_1463096075.jpg[/epzimg]

With serious photographic artists doing everything they can to turn their backs on blandly pristine digital primness, it's a joy to see someone covering these funny little things. I've heard of photographers who are ashamed to be seen out with them - "my Pro DSLR with something plastic on it that cost £20" was the gist of what somebody wrote. For me. that's part of the fun; as is seeing members of the public lose interest in you (meaning more spontaneous shots) when they've concluded you're probably a joke. Not that you should expect photography with these to be plain sailing, or as luxuriously easy as work with equipment that costs thousands. A lot of what you produce will be a disaster. But then, when you've learnt the ropes, you'll have just a few shots which with a bit of tweaking are a revelation.

Faint praise? Hardly, when you consider that the thumbnails I upload here were made with equipment that cost less than £50 all in. Your first attempts with the Holga Fisheye will probably be blank or black and will stay so, unless you experiment with a tripod or else a camera with phenomenally high ISO settings. Keep the tripod, though: as it will ensure basic sharpness (such little as you can expect) combined with some delicious motion blurs. I've even used it to make HD footage in Trafalgar Square. Rich colours in bright sunshine, or else in city twilight, fare best. The other image here, of a London graveyard, was from the majestically-named Neewer Digital High Definition 0.45x Super Wide Angle. I made sure to use both parts screwed together, and I was prepared for some Photoshop to eliminate the inevitable vignetting.

The only disappointment, for me, was the Lomo kit. It depends on the size of your sensor but with many digital cameras, including my Canon 70D, the results will be much less wide-angled than they're supposed to be, or barely a fisheye at all. These are best left to the owners of true Lomo cameras, replete with their equally funny film.

Lomo, it's true, are beginning to do phenomenal things. The new Lomography Daguerreotype Achromat 2.9/64 Art Lens seems set to produce some of the most memorable portraits we might have seen in years. But then, costing as much as a holiday, that's scarcely a toy, is it?