Okay, so this camera is not new news as such, it’s “olds”, but I recently got sent some promo shots for this Yashica camera and looking at it made me think of the Holga toy camera that is popular amongst LOMO-lovers for its lo-fi aesthetic it creates. Having looked around, and found a Flickr group on the EZ F521, I think this camera could be (and should be) adopted as a digital equivalent of Hong Kong’s lovable 28 year-old, medium-format Holga.

Looking at it kind of reminds me of Konica’s Hexar (if you squint a bit and close one eye) and the Bronica RF645 (if you have both eyes closed) but don’t expect performance anywhere near those aforementioned cameras. Unless you haven’t mounted lenses on the previously mentioned cameras, then there might be some competition.

But let’s not knock it down at the first hurdle, the EZ F521 has a certain cheap charm to it, with a little viewfinder (that offers no parallax correction) and a back-to-basics look to it. That chunky lens that you see on the front is a bit of a “padded bra” however, as that big surface on the front is not actually anything more than a sheet of plastic that doesn’t serve any purpose but to cover the actual lens.

The “mere” 5 megapixels is a bit of a non-issue as this camera’s raison d’être is not for super large prints or advertorials. It’s for the fun factor, and I am quite excited to get my hands on one of these.

Despite being a bare-bones compact camera with a body-kit on, it does have some features like the filter effects that could give some LOMO-like coloursplash effects.

Also, the front lens part thingy can be unscrewed, so you can mess about with it to create some “interesting” effects. Someone has done that to try and make it look as much like a Holga as possible here.

Yashica were well known for their film SLRs, TLRs and rangefinders before, so it’s interesting that they have taken the “low road” with this camera. Nonetheless, I think I just might part with my money for this charming little digital toy camera, and it’s apparently going to be priced under 100 quid too!

Also check out:

• Japan Exposures sample pics
• Holga wikipedia page
• Vignetting mod for Yashica EZ F521
• Yashica’s official website

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