Okay Geek Farm
The Holga D digital camera is purified photography
Brandon Davenport
You look at a camera like the Canon 5D, and all you see is a hurricane of buttons and displays. Photography has taken an interesting route over the last decade in which digital technology became the main factor in taking photos, and not analog switches or lenses. Some may say photographers are loosing their true sense of photography, relying on new-fangled gizmos — but some say that all these advances have made us more in-tune with perfection, and much more efficient.
For those of us that would like to explore the simpler things that photography has to offer, there is the new Holga D. This new camera’s main objective is to bring a more organic photography experience, and do away with unnecessary buttons and displays (even viewfinders).
The Specs and features (or lack thereof)
The Holga D features a very minimalistic (but compelling) feature set. It has a beautiful, circular E-ink display which will display the number of photos available, shooting modes, aspect ratio and battery status. There is a bright orage button to take the photos, and two dials (one surrounding the orange button, and the display) to control ISO and shutter speed. The lens is manual focus, and removable.
One of the more compelling features of the camera is the ability to switch for right-handed and left-handed users. The top part of the camera can be de-tatchedand rotated to fit the users capabilities. There is also a small switch at the back of the camera to select either square, or 2:3 shooting aspect ratios. The camera also features an SD card slot — and all of this is powered by two standard AA batteries.
Plans for production
There aren’t any solid plans to start production on the Holga D, but the creator wants to see this device become the first open-source camera. They also want to see 3rd party companies designing accessories for the camera’s “accessory port”, such as displays, viewfinders and flashes.
I would like to see Holga.D is as an open-source camera platform, co-developed by like minded enthusiasts and professionals from all related fields. At the end of it’s initial development the hardware design (the schematics, bill of materials, PCB layout data etc), as well as the software/firmware source code would be available for anyone to produce, distribute and modify under open-source license.
Diagrams of the Holga D
