Reposted following loss of the original to an annoying technical problem. Enjoy!

A little while ago, I thought I’d try out a couple of classic medium-format toy cameras under (relatively) controlled conditions to see how they performed. The cameras concerned were a 1960s “Debonair”, one of the many incarnations of the famous Diana camera, and a more recent Holga 120CFN, a flash-fitted version of the Holga 120 series of cameras.

Both are notorious for all sorts of technical failings and problems. If you consider “light-tight box” a key part of the definition of a camera, you’re possibly going to be disappointed! They both have really crappy plastic lenses, and are very flimsily constructed, but every now and again they produce miracles and actually take decent photos!

Here they are in all their glory:

Anyway, I loaded them both up with Kodak Gold 200 film, and then set about taking shots as closely comparable as possible with them, to try measuring the accuracy of the viewfinder, and seeing how they interpreted various scenes. This involved taking a square reference shot with my phone, and then attempting, as closely as possible, to line up the same view in the viewfinder with each camera, and shoot using similar settings. There are some differences between the cameras that made this tricky, and sometimes I couldn’t line up the shot exactly the same as the phone, but here’s the results of my little exercise.

Round 1: Birkhill Station, Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway

Right here on my first shot, I realised how tricky this was all going to be! My phone had a much wider angle of vision than either of the cameras, and I had to stand some way back to try and recreate the shots, which as you can see, proved rather challenging. Note here that the Debonair has allowed in rather more light, and that the Holga has a wider angle of view. Otherwise, these pictures are pretty similar, and just the sort of crappy toy camera aesthetic you’d expect!

Result: draw
Score: Debonair 1, Holga 1

Round 2: Birkhill Station, Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway

Just a quick scoot around to the other side of the bridge for this one.

Hard to decide a winner here. Debonair exposure is better, but it proved far easier to get the framing right with the Holga, and I think the quality is slightly better.

Result: Holga win
Score: Debonair 1, Holga 2

Round 3: Birkhill Station, Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway

Down onto the platform for the next few shots.

It was very difficult replicating the framing here, as every camera needed a different distance from the subject, and I didn’t fancy falling off the edge of the platform. Evidence of some light leaks on the Debonair, and the Holga does better with definition, composition and exposure here, I think.

Result: Holga win
Score: Debonair 1, Holga 3

Round 4: Birkhill Station, Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway

Now for a view along the platform.

I had to do lots of pacing up and down to get this even near remotely right. As you can see, it was difficult! This shot demonstrates that the Holga’s exposure control is pretty useless, and despite the light leak and poorer framing, I think the Debonair has the edge here.

Result: Debonair win
Score: Debonair 2, Holga 3

Round 5: Birkhill Station, Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway

A view back the other way.

The Holga produces better contrast, has no light leaks and framing more like the reference shot here, so a clear winner, I think.

Result: Holga win
Score: Debonair 2, Holga 4

Round 6: Bo’ness Foreshore

I’ve always been fond of this big yellow thing.

As can be seen, this was difficult to frame. Better contrast, distance from subject and colour with the Debonair this time around, I think, so that’s a win there.

Result: Debonair win
Score: Debonair 3, Holga 4

Round 7: Stirling River Bridge

A little further afield for this one.

Another one where the framing was really tricky to replicate. Holga really badly let down by underexposure on this cloudy day, so I’ll hand the prize to the Debonair again. We’re level!

Result: Debonair win
Score: Debonair 4, Holga 4

Round 8: Path in Linlithgow

Out for a walk on the way to a geocache.

It was tough to choose here, but the better framing and lack of light leak gets the Holga across the line, despite the underexposure.

Result: Holga win
Score: Debonair 4, Holga 5

Round 9: Loch and Palace

A classic Linlithgow view.

Oh, dear. Serious malfunction for the Holga. I suspect this might have happened when unloading the camera, as it can be a common problem. Obvious winner here. Besides the light leak, the Debonair photo is nice anyway.

Result: Debonair win
Score: Debonair 5, Holga 5

Round 10: Path and fields.

I love yellow things.

Technical fail for the Holga here. It clearly would have been a better photo without the light leak, as it’s crisper, more contrasty and has much better exposure. I rather like the Debonair’s dreamy result, though.

Result: Debonair win
Score: Debonair 6, Holga 5

Round 11: Pebbles

Never a particular good idea to attempt closeups with toycams, but I never do it so I thought I’d give it a go.

Ah, another light leak problem, but without it, the shot is poorly exposed, so another win for the Debonair, rapidly edging ahead on the final dash!

Result: Debonair win
Score: Debonair 7, Holga 5

Round 12: Edinburgh Park Sculptures

Final shot of these interesting things in amongst the office buildings.

Oops! The switch to change shutter speeds is loose on the Holga, and very easy to knock by accident, as obviously happened here. As it happens, the Debonair was almost a perfect match for composition anyway, so the Holga had a tough challenge in this round.

Result: Debonair win
Score: Debonair 8, Holga 5

So – the Debonair won quite nicely, I think. The exposure was much better, and the switch sort-of gets things right on 200 speed film – 100 is probably best, given its age. The Holga definitely needs faster, 400 is a must I think, unless you use flash on it. Another bonus of the Debonair is that you get 16 shots on a roll, rather than 12, so it works out a bit cheaper to use.

This was fun, but it does obviously prove that these cameras are seriously hit and miss. There’s no denying that all these photos are objectively crap, but I’ll defend them as “art”, and it was all done in the name of experimentation. 🙂