Before I tell you what the digital Holga D doesn't do, let me recap what Lomo's plastic-fantastic Holga medium-format film camera does do.
The Holga has a cheap plastic lens, an even cheaper light-leaking plastic body, settings so sparse that they're almost superfluous and, as with all film cameras, delayed gratification in the form of the need for chemical processing before you can see your blurred, distorted photographs.
Onto the Holga D, invented by designer Saikat Biswas and noticed on the internet by impossibly handsome Wired.com photographer Jon Snyder. The plain box lacks an LCD screen of any kind, and the camera is controlled by manual focus, shutter, ISO and aperture dials. The status of these controls is shown on a small e-ink circle, and there are switches to choose a B&W mode and also pick an aspect ratio. To keep things low-fi and cheap, the sensor is either a full-frame or crop-frame model from last generation designs. That is, when technology moves on, the Holga D uses what is left behind.
The box itself is beautifully minimal, and if Biswas ever gets this into production then he'd probably sell a bunch to hipsters based on looks alone. In lieu of an actual working product, how should we fill the vacuum in reality left by the Holga D? This holiday weekend, why not take your digicam, switch off the LCD, turn on full manual control and take some chances. I guarantee two things: you'll have a lot of fun, and you'll get a lot of bad, bad pictures.
Holga D [Saikat Biswas via Twitter]
See Also:
