I can’t lie, I’m really having fun with the X Pro 1 and the Holga lens. I know it’s nuts to think that I’ve taken an amazing, expensive mirrorless camera and slapped a Chinese adapter and a toy plastic lens on it. I’ve effectively turned it into a $1000 toddler cam… Or have I ?Well, yes and no. For starters it does have soft focus and nearly no unassisted ability to win in low light. It’s so analog the camera treats it like an f/0 lens – the meter is useless and so is TTL viewing. Additionally, it has no setting for 90mm frame lines. The closest I can get is 75mm making my frame lines less than accurate. Yeah it’s a big, expensive toy digital camera that can take crappy toy digital photos. But it’s also a fully configurable camera. Watch enough “Pro Photographer / Cheap Camera” challenges on Digitalrev TV and you’ll see that even cheap cameras in the right hands take great photos. So imagine you have a crappy plastic digital camera, but it has a 16Megapixel Fuji X-Trans APS-C sensor, 7 film emulations, RAW support, ISO from 100 to 25,600, and shutter speeds up to 1/4000s (higher if you dig into your camera menu). Imagine your toy camera can take great pictures hand-held at 1/30s with no flash, and even though your holding it in one hand at a stop light , shooting through a windshield at ISO 6400 , f/8 , and 1/2 second and you can still get this:Am I getting through yet? Now consider that your camera, with all those nifty pro options also does double-exposures. Yes, that’s right. Your “digital Holga” does double-exposures the same way your analog Holga does. Are these the best shots in the world? No. But that’s kinda the point. It’s LOMOGRAPHY at its core, and yet high quality output. Each of the pictures taken and displayed here are straight JPEGS from the camera with Std Fuji emulation, not Velvia or Provia, just bone stock. Look at how rich the colors can be. And while it’s certainly not a camera you’d necessarily take on a pro shoot, it’s something to consider if you’re remotely into Fine Art Photography. It has a lot of potential. It’s a lot of fun to shoot, and most importantly it’s the only one of its kind…and it’s mine.
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