60mm f/8 Lens for Nikon DSLR (Black)

I really miss using my old Holga camera now that film is crazy expensive/inconvenient to shoot. This is the best replication of the Holga experience - the feel is the same. Still a 60mm f/13 lens, still manual focus with pictures of people and mountains, still clear in the center and darker/blurry on the outside. Won't meter right on a Nikon DSLR, so it still helps if you know how to match your ISO/so forth to light conditions. Price is cheap, so I'd recommend it if you miss your Holga at all. That said, there are some definite differences. The biggest is that the same lens acts differently on an APS-C sized sensor rather than medium format film. It was the perfect angle before, a sort of wide normal lens, but on a smaller sensor the lens is much narrower and less convenient, more like a portrait lens. Also, while the far corners of the picture are dark and blurry and it all looks Holga-ish, if you shoot in square format pretty much everything is fairly clear and doesn't really look Holga-ish. I think the ideal for this camera, or at least the best way to replicate the original Holga, would be to shoot a full-frame camera, square format. I don't have a full-frame camera so that's just a guess. Digital sensors don't act the same way as film with light drop-off, so pictures have a distinct effect but it's just not quite the same. I used this lens on a Nikon 3300. It works fine, but you have to have it in Manual mode, and it won't really meter.

This lens is super fun to play with. Love it!

Exactly what I wanted and I LOVE it. If you get this with the expectation that it is a PLASTIC LENS from a famous TOY CAMERA...then this lovely little thing delivers. I'm using it with an adaptor on a fujifilm xm-1. The adaptor is heavier than the holga lens and feels rather silly. I would love to be able to put this thing directly on the camera, given how fun and tiny it is. Definitely needs a LOT of light, though, and you'll need to fiddle with the ISO. I attached two images--straight from the camera, no editing. EDIT: after a year or so I'm dropping down a star because this thing is kind of a pain to use and it really is FULL sunlight or nothing, and the focusing is a joke. But still worth at least 4 stars because when conditions are nigh perfect...you do get some very cool shots.

So obviously the picture quality this lens produces is pretty terrible, but that's the point. It produces charmingly bad pictures. It has its limitations: I find that the fixed focal length of 60 mm is particularly tough when I have to keep backing up and backing up to get something interesting in frame. Focusing is an inexact science at best, and a few shots have been ruined when I uploaded them and realized I'd gotten it wrong, but careful chimping minimizes this loss. Shooting in manual isn't very daunting on a lens with a fixed aperture, it's essentially no different from shooting in S mode. Upping the ISO can get dicey from a noise reduction standpoint, but if you're choosing appropriately lit subjects you don't need to raise it that high, and the pictures have a granular quality that makes noise less of a problem anyway. All these limitations are well known, and to fans of lomography, they're not bugs, they're features. But one thing you may not expect (though maybe you will, as other reviewers have mentioned it), and that is not at all necessary to replicating the Holga experience, is how loosely the lens fits the camera body. It's supposed to have been designed specifically with the Nikon F Mount in mind. The Nikon F Mount is standard across dozens of camera bodies, and countless third party lenses fit it snugly. Why can't this do the same? Yes, it's made entirely of plastic; but so are my body caps, and those fit as snugly as the lenses. It would not have been hard to make this lens fit correctly. In fact I can't see any way in which it would have been any easier to make the loose fit that they did. The fit is not so loose that I'm worried about the lens falling out or anything (though I might be if it weren't so extremely lightweight) but it definitely jiggles disconcertingly. The effect is magnified when I adjust the focus ring (which by the way is a good bit tighter than I would like it to be; this problem is compounded by the fact that putting any elbow grease into adjusting it further jostles the lens in the body). Every time I've used this lens in the field, the pictures I've uploaded have had indistinct blobs in a pattern that is duplicated exactly across multiple pictures. You know what that means: schmutz on the image sensor. Sometimes it can be corrected in editing, sometimes not. It always fills me with anxiety that I won't be able to get the image sensor clean again afterward. I've always been able to so far, but the effect continues to be that I'm reluctant to use this lens, for all its charms. And even a $15 lens is hideously overpriced if I never want to use it.

I have had a blast using an intentionally lo-fi lens. It really lays bare what makes a great photo, as opposed to relying on crystal-clear optics. You will have to back up, and then back up some more, and then just a little bit more to get things in the frame - so watch your step. Sure, you can get vignetting as a filter in photoshop, but that's for the weak!! You will learn to crank up your ISO, lower your shutter speed, and abandon your expectations of perfection - all for the incredibly low, low price of under $20!

Sounded like a fun idea, and I didn't have great expectations, but... The lens wobbles around, there isn't even a reasonably snug fit to the camera. At ISO 200 and 1/60 shutter speed, the photos are just black. At ISO 1000 I was able to take a photo of a light bulb. It just doesn't let in enough light to take pics in the real world. Maybe I'll try it during the next solar eclipse. :/

OK, how much fun is this little toy?? Yes, it is a toy and not a "quality" lens. But, it's fun value is at least 10 times as much as what I paid for it. Creating old-style, soft focus, vignetted photos. A welcome addition to my equipment and I'm sure it will bring me hours of fun and hundreds of great pictures. Seller shipped it quickly, I had it 2 days after I ordered. Setting it up with my camera (D40x) couldn't have been easier. Take off the lens, snap this one in place, set the camera to Manual and play with the shutter speed. You need to turn the ring on the lens to play with "focus" distance, from about 2 feet through 30 feet (there are 4 pre-set distance settings) and anywhere in between. Easy peasy. On a clear day, I can keep the ISO at 200 and still maintain a shutter speed of around 125. Not too bad. Although the picture in the view finder is rather dark (due to the small opening in the back of the lens not much light finds its way into the camera). Keep in mind: due to the sensor factor, the 60mm will translate to 90mm in "real life". So don't expect wide angle shots. If you like to experiment, get it. It won't break the bank. And if you don't like it (but why wouldn't you???), I'm sure someone else will be happy to take it off your hands. Only con: like a previous reviewer said, a case would be nice. But then again it's plastic, so little risk of scratching it.

Holga lenses are becoming a serious trend in artistic/creative digital photography. I love this! It takes some playing with to figure out what setting work best with it, but once you figure it out, it produces soft, beautifully lit photos, with lovely, natural vignette around the edges. Things to be aware of are that it's a fixed lens, and it only works in manual setting, and it's fixed aperture. Because it's pinhole, you have to really play with the ISO and shutter speed to find what works. Shooting in higher light will work best. If you enjoy experimenting and want to find new ways to be creative, don't miss this lens! And with the price, you really can't go wrong!