Gift Idea!

What better gift to give your budding shutterbug than a Leica? In particular, the new, beautiful, well-reviewed Leica M8 Digital. It has all the control you could ever want, thanks to those legendary Leica lenses. This isn't one of the silly, rebadged versions of some cheaper camera. It's genuinely Leica, through and through. The digital screen isn't for viewfinding. That wouldn't be Leica! It's only used to reviewing photos taken through the old, hold-the-camera-to-my-eye-and-pray-I-don't-run-into-anything viewfinder. The only hitch? It costs around $4500, which doesn't include the myriad of lenses and accessories you'll be sure to want. A Leica M7 is about $1000, so consider how much you might save on film and developing maybe? Haha. Well, someday, maybe...

Less expensive is the Holga camera, which comes with a bunch of extras, padding the initial $15 or so price. Either way, the results of the camera seem kinda surreal, because I guess the camera is super-cheaply constructed and leaks light, making it kind of a cult favorite among those who like their work "dreamy". Or "steamy," I suppose. Check out some of the prints here.