Digital Holgas Everywhere

Our friend Dirk Rösler of Japan Exposures has added the upcoming Exemode-Yashica EZ F521 to his export list. If you're not familiar with Japan Exposures (formerly Megaperls Webshop), they export Japan-only photographic products to most of the rest of the world, including North America, Europe, and Australia.

It costs a little more, of course—$112 or so.

Mike

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UPDATE: Dirk checked with Exemode,who tell him that the prototype camera has menus in English, Spanish, etc. as well as Japanese, but that they need to wait until release to be able to tell "officially." If you order one and the shipping camera turns out not to have menus in the language you need, you can cancel your order for a refund.

Comments

[Carsten S]

Thanks for the info. The camera would probably be fun, but I am a bit intimidated be the idea of navigating Japanese menus. I could only hope that the standard settings are reasonable.

[Manish]

It says 'On sale in Japan only'. Not sure if it means they won't be shipping it internationally.

[Matthew Miller]

Instructions in Japanese only I can handle. Does anyone know if this will have an English-language menu option?

[Miserere]

Hey Matt, I think all menus will be in Japanese only, given the history of other Japan-only cameras.

[David]

Manish: Read the next sentence, "Available from late October - pre-orders/reservations accepted."

There are also links to shipping/returns, payment and contact info at the bottom-left of each page.

[Alex Vesey]

Mike,
Thank you very much for the link to Japanexposures. I had never heard of it, but it looks like a great site.

Alex

[Ian]

I am actually puzzled by the buzz over this camera. It looks to be a really poor design (pretty cheap lens). Any digicam released circa 2002-2005 will have comparable performance, quirky/retro looks and cost next to nothing on eBay.

[misha]

I have bought grey market dSLRs before, and there is a multi-language menu. The instruction booklet was only in Japanese.

E-mail the guy. He'll be happy to answer.

Just my 2¢.

[Manish]

I am actually puzzled by the buzz over this camera. It looks to be a really poor design (pretty cheap lens). Any digicam released circa 2002-2005 will have comparable performance, quirky/retro looks and cost next to nothing on eBay.

Well, that's not exactly true. The very first camera I used (and still use) was Yashica MF-2. The beauty of that camera was that it completely got out of the way of the photographer. There was no need to focus as the lens was permanently set to hyper-focal distance. You couldn't change the aperture and, if I remember correctly, you couldn't change the shutter speed either. You could only choose between ISO 100 and 400. And it had an optical viewfinder. The only thing you could with that camera was to press the shutter. Well, needless to say, this F521 is the digital avatar of MF-2. It even looks like MF-2. I will surely be buying one as soon they become available.

Link to an image of MF-2:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/louisclub/2232757065/

[K.Kafka]

Of course, I'm probably missing the point, as well as the "hipness factor", but there are so many ways to degrade a digital image, (at the time of exposure or in post-processing), the need for a crappy toy camera to achieve this objective seems unnecessary. I'd rather buy a LensBaby.

[David Brookes]

Quote: There was no need to focus as the lens was permanently set to hyper-focal distance. You couldn't change the aperture and, if I remember correctly, you couldn't change the shutter speed either. You could only choose between ISO 100 and 400. And it had an optical viewfinder.
I had a camera like that once - it was a Kodak Brownie 127, and I was 10 years old (unlike the above camera, though, on mine you couldn't change the film speed, just decided whether you wanted Ilford or Kodak). However, since I scraped together the cash to buy my first 35 mm camera (an Agfa Silette) I have never felt the desire to regress!

[canon-5d-shooter]

The beef I have with the lensbaby is that it is too over the top. I want mild flare, subtle nuances, wavy distortions, you know....Like a Holga does it!

I'm afraid this camera will just be a lousy camera. Maybe not!

[Ian]

Manish, the MF-2 is a real camera with an actual camera lens. I own a Yashica Electro 35 GSN and it has a great lens - takes very nice pictures. This new "Yashica" has a toy camera type of lens - look at the pictures of the camera closely. Those concentric rings point to a very small front element or toy lens. Hence the comparison to the Digital Holga are actually quite applicable. David Brookes describes the situation better than I can.