toycamera

Michael Zhang

Manga-Camera is Like Instagram Filters for Japanese Comic Lovers

There's an iPhone camera app generating quite a bit of buzz, and it's not Instagram or Camera+. The new rising star is Manga-Camera, a fun app that's been downloaded like hotcakes in recent days (okay, we made up that expression). It has been downloaded over a million times in just the past week, and is currently the number one most popular app in the Japanese App Store.

The app is similar to Instagram filters, except instead of making your photos look like they were taken with a retro or toy camera, it makes them look like they were drawn by a Japanese manga artist.

Jessica Lum

Dirkon: The Vintage DIY Pinhole Camera Made of Paper

The Dirkon pinhole 35mm camera is made entirely from paper cut from a template by designers Martin Pilný, Mirek Kolář and Richard Vyškovský. The three published the template in a 1979 issue of Czechoslovakian magazine ABC mladých techniků a přírodovědců (translated as An ABC of Young Technicians and Natural Scientists). While original prints of the magazine are rare, the Dirkon gained cult popularity in Chzechoslovakia.

DL Cade

Lomography Announces a New Pocket Camera To Go With Their 110 Film

Admittedly, people didn't react all that well when Lomography announced that they were bringing 110 film back from the grave, but you have to give them credit for pressing on. Despite criticism that the old toy camera film was never any good to begin with, Lomography have now announced their new Fisheye Baby 110, a pocket-sized camera to go with the pocket sized film.

Michael Zhang

Homemade Digital Lomography Camera

Faking toy camera effects with apps or software is a big fad these days, but Joel Pirela of Blue Ant Studio went a step further: he built his own homemade digital Lomography camera using some walnut wood, hand-polished aluminum frame, parts from a 5-megapixel Vivitar Vivicam, and an Olympus OM series lens.

Michael Zhang

Hook Your Child on Photography with this Vintage Fisher Price Shooter

Made in the early 1960s, Fisher Price's Picture Story Camera was the first "camera" owned by many photo-enthusiasts. They're built out of paper-covered wood and plastic, and contained a tiny disc with eight different "photographs" that could be seen by looking through the viewfinder -- similar to the View-Master, except not in 3D. To change the photo, you simply hold down the shutter and turn the "flash", a yellow block with pictures representing the four seasons.

Michael Zhang

Digital Holga Concept for a New Generation of Hipsters

Holga D is a concept camera by India-based industrial designer Saikat Biswas that brings the plastic, medium-format Holga camera into the digital age.

The cheap toy camera design retains the optical jankiness that lures hipsters to this type of camera (i.e. vignetting, blurring, and light leaks), but a DSLR-caliber sensor inside ensures that the anomalies are optical rather than digital.

Gregg Horton

How to Convert a Holga Lens for Your DSLR for Toy Camera Fun

I have been using Holgas on and off for many years, and I have always had the idea of how to make it digital. There are many current options one being strapping a medium format digital back to your Holga, but that method is very cost prohibitive for most people messing around with toy cameras. I have seen lens mods on DSLR cameras that take the body cap and glue the holga lens on, but they are upwards of 50 bucks each.

I like a challenge so I decided to make one myself! Here is my method for doing so, so you can do it too.