The month of June was a blur for me. With work and other things, there was so much going on. I still have to catch up at looking at everybody’s posts from May, which I will do soon as things are slowing down — somewhat.
Anyway, July is just a day away and that means the June photo challenge is ending. This theme, I think, has the chance to be pretty cool, depending what people went with. I decided to break out my “toy” lenses for this challenge as they are ones I rarely use. It also makes me want to challenge myself to do them more.
For those who don’t know what toy lenses are, look below. Very cool items and I love how they work so well with digital and mimic the film cameras they are trying to emulate so well.
I might try and revisit this theme in the future — in different wording, of course. As I think it’s a great way to challenge ourselves photographically. Side note: I didn’t do much editing at all with these photos. No sharpening. Just a little bumping of levels where needed.
My five are below. And as I mentioned last month, please try and visit and comment on each person’s posts. I know sometimes we get to them late — and that’s fine. But it’s disheartening to visit people’s blogs (I’m usually quite late!) and see only a few of the participants visiting others. Remember, we are a community. Support one another.
All that being said, it’s time to see what this month has brought us. Here is my five for the month:
1. Diana
The Diana Lens is amazingly awesome. I truly love breaking it out when I can. I like the “dreamy” look on the outsides of the image. I also like that colors do pop with it.
2. Holga 1
My first experiences with a Holga camera were years ago when I won one in a contest on a blog. I loved using it, but getting film developed was a pain — especially being it was 120. So, when this Holga lens for a Canon camera (there are ones for Nikon, too) came out, I had to have it. And I paid less than $25 for it. It’s very cool to play with and see what you can get out of it. In this shot, I took a few of the flag flapping in the wind. I like the focal point and the look of the rest of the photo.
3. Holga 2
Still with the Holga lens here. This shows how hard it is to focus. You only have three focus settings and because you can’t see much through the viewfinder, it’s more of a shoot and see what happens sort of lens. Really fun, though.
4. Pinhole 1
I have two pinhole lenses for my digital camera. This one is from the makers of the Holga lens. Very cool setup. And hard to figure things out. I need to work more with this lens and really see what I can do with it. But I like the look of this photo as it seems like a photo you would have seen years and years and years ago.
5. Pinhole 2
This pinhole “lens” is basically a lenscap, which has been turned into a lens. It’s really neat and also hard to master. This is a longer exposure, and I sat the camera over top of these to get the shot. Kind of interesting.
There are my five and I look forward to seeing what others had this month!
If you took part in this month’s challenge, make sure to link up below. And for those of you who participated, make sure you try and get to other people’s blogs and comment (here, too!). Let’s continue to grow this challenge and have a strong community. Come back and check out the others who link later on, too!
Also, don’t forget to get back here Saturday, July 1 for the July theme!
NOTE: I set up a Facebook group for those who participate in the challenge and are interested. I’ll post any announcements there and hopefully it can be a place where things are discussed and some interaction etc. You can access it here.
Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook! You can also follow me on Twitter @softball29!
Love the Diana effect, very cool! Also the flag is very much to my liking! I feel like a complete nobody regarding photography with cool cameras, lenses, special effects, etc. but I do like to admire other people’s artwork!
Happy weekend and as always, thanks for hosting this challenge! It’s always a highlight of the month!
That Diana lens can be very cool. I find all the “toy” lenses to have a good place to own as they are cheap, but I don’t use them too much. So, when I do, it’s a lot of fun! 🙂
I’m deeply coveting the “toy” lenses! It really makes me want to get another SLR. I love the shot of the flag. Very cool. But, where is Cameron?! 🙂
The best part about these toy lenses is that none of them are that expensive. I would say the 4 or so I own cost a total of less than $100.
Okay I’ve not heard of toy lens before, but I like the results especially the flag and pinhole 2 image of pistachio nuts with a good monochrome tone. I wouldn’t mind trying toy lens out looks like creative fun ???
The toy lenses are a heap of fun and cheap. They are mainly called toy because of the plastic lenses. Lots of fun!
Really cool effects. The flag is from a creative perspective and I love the texture of the pistachio nuts. In love and light Cheryle
Thank you so much! 🙂
This reminded me I have one of those Holga lenses somewhere. I need to dig it up. Your third photo, Holga 2 is not showing up on my feed for some reason.
Mike Davis recently posted..Photo Blogging Challenge (June 2017): Different lens/camera
All fixed!
Did you ever find that Holga lens? So much fun!
Fascinating! Your post made me go check whether toy lenses are available for mirrorrless, micro four-thirds format cameras. Looks like Photojojo has a couple of options that I’m going to look into. There is an in camera pinhole effect setting, but I haven’t played with it much. And I have an original Diana film camera (very hard to find square format film, so I used 35 mm the one and only time I shot a roll with it). I found that every photo was a bit of a surprise!
I thought this was a great theme to prompt us to get out of our gear comfort zones, and would like to up vote your idea of bringing this theme out again!