The simplicity of a toy camera is its best feature.

Loaded with a roll of 400 ISO print film, pointing a toy camera at pretty much anything will get you a picture. It may not be the picture you expect- it may be much better, and it may be much worse- but it's photography stripped down to its basics, and it can be a great teacher.

You can use a toy camera carefully, getting to know its ins and outs, and produce fantastic images- or you can pop off a few random shots and see what happens. But being able to step away from pixel-peeping, Photoshopping, and resolution charts to discover that photography is more than the sum of its parts- that you can take amazing pictures with what is essentially the simplest picture-making machine available- is worth the journey by itself.

	Diana Mini A tiny version of the Diana medium-format camera. Takes half-frame or square-format images through a 24mm wide-angle lens :: $69
	Lomographic Fisheye Tons of fun, this is a real live fisheye lens mounted to a simple plastic camera. 170-degree field of view means that you're going to get a picture of pretty much everything in your field of view :: $59 Click here for samples
	Lomographic Fisheye 2 Similar to the original Lomo Fisheye but with a metal-clad body, fisheye viewfinder, and multiple exposure capability :: $79 Click here for samples
	Lomographic Spinner 360 Pull the string and the Spinner whips around, recording a 360-degree image to a strip of film. An amazing camera with plenty of fun applications :: $149 Click here for samples

	Holga 120N The classic toy camera, this all-plastic medium format camera features a single-element meniscus lens, a choice of two apertures, a guess-focus system, and a hot shoe for flash photography :: $49
	Holga Pinhole Stereo The Holga Pinhole Stereo takes two side-by-side 6x6cm pinhole images on 120 rollfilm for a distinctive and unusual 3D perspective :: $89
	Holga Stereo With a pair of single-element Holga lenses and two built-in flash units (with built-in Colorsplash filters!), this camera can be used as a standard Holga or as a surprisingly effective medium-format 3D camera :: $99 Click here for samples