The Lomography Experimental Lens Kit ($99) is a set of three lenses for use with Micro Four Thirds mirrorless cameras. Each plastic lens features a fixed f/8 aperture, manual focus control, and a mechanical shutter so that you can capture multiple exposures in a single image. At close to $100, the kit is a bit more than an impulse buy, especially if you’re only interested in one of the trio of lenses. But if you love the lo-fi Lomo look and want to add something different to your photographic bag of tricks, it’s worth consideration.

The Experimental Kit consists of a wide-angle 12mm, a standard-angle 24mm, and a circular fisheye lens. All three lenses include a slot for colored gel filters, but you’ll have to take the lens off the camera to slide one of the included filters in. I used a red filter for some shots with the circular fisheye with the intention of converting photos to black and white, but personally didn’t find much use for them. If you like to use filters for black-and-white work, or simply want to give color images an intense tinted look, they’ll come in handy.

Of the three lenses, the circular fisheye delivers the most dramatic look. There aren’t a ton of fisheye options for Micro Four Thirds cameras; Panasonic makes the Lumix G Fisheye 8mm F3.5 ($797.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) , but it’s expensive and isn’t a circular design. You won’t want to use a fisheye for every photo, but its unique field of view is a great choice for occasional use, and I loved the natural black frame that its circular field of view creates around your image.

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I was a little less enamored with the standard and wide-angle lenses during testing. They both capture images with a soft, lo-fi look, just at different angles. My issue is that they were not soft enough. When I think about the Lomo look, I want the trippy wide-angle imagery captured by the La Sardina ( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) or the strong center sharpness and dreamy borders that the Diana F+ captures on medium format film.

Instead the lenses produce images that are reasonably sharp at the center of the frame, but not quite as crisp as the Diana F+ manages in the same area. The edges do give way to some softness, but it’s nowhere near as soft as the Diana. My preferences are my preferences, and you may very well adore the way that the wide-angle and standard lenses draw scenes, but for me there was something missing.

I tried my best to use the double exposure function, but I found that doing so with digital was just too limiting for me to get any results worth showing off. When you deal with double exposure with a film camera, you can spend as much time as you’d like between shots—seconds, hours, weeks, or months. But with a digital camera you’re limited to the longest possible shutter speed, which is usually measured in seconds or minutes. It’s easy enough to capture a double image if you see something that works within the same area, but beyond that it’s not practical.

Micro Four Thirds photographers who lean towards the artistic side of photography should consider the Lomography Experimental Lens Kit. If you fall into this category and appreciate the look that the wide-angle and standard lenses deliver, or love the idea of digital double exposures, it’s pretty easy to justify the kit’s $99 price tag. I think the real star of the trio is the circular fisheye lens, to the point where I wish it was available to purchase separately. It’s one of those lenses that you probably won’t use that often, but will love when the right scene comes along. But buying the whole kit just to get the one lens isn’t as easy a decision as getting it on its own would be.