Lo-Fi Street Photography with an Oreo Lens
Over the past few years, I’ve found myself drifting away from night street photography. With life returning to how it was before the pandemic, and streets even more crowded than before, I just don’t enjoy it anymore. However, recently, I stumbled upon the so-called Oreo Lens and decided to give it a try, shooting at night.
The Oreo Lens
Mounted on a Fujifilm X-T5, it looks even smaller!
For those who don’t know, the Oreo Lens isn’t an official product but rather a nickname given to a compact, inexpensive body cap lens inspired by disposable cameras... and Oreo cookies. You can buy it for very cheap in a few different mounts. With a fixed focal length of around 35mm (around 50mm full-frame equivalent when mounted on APC-S cameras) and an aperture of f/10, it delivers a vintage aesthetic... or basically, terrible but fun low quality. Paired with Fujifilm’s film simulation, you can get close to the look of old disposable film cameras. There’s no way to adjust the focus, so everything from roughly 1.5 meters to infinity is in focus.
So a few months ago, I bought an Oreo Lens and mounted it onto my Fujifilm X-T5 before heading to Tokyo for some errands. Since I was there, I took the chance to experiment a bit with night street photography, without any pressure and knowing from the start that I wouldn’t come home with any “perfect” shots. Well, I brought home a very fun experience instead.
Shooting at night with an f/10 aperture is far from ideal, let alone not being able to focus. But rather than getting frustrated by these limitations, that’s where the fun part kicked in. When you can’t do anything but try, you’re forced to focus more on what’s happening around you rather than on the camera itself. I didn’t look at it that way at the time, but in hindsight, I’d say this could be an exercise in practicing observation and composition.
I haven’t used the lens since then, so for how budget-friendly it is, I’d recommend being aware that this is something you’d use once or twice just for fun. Was it worth it for me? Definitely, since it managed to bring me back to night street photography, even if only for one night.
