Holga 120mm - first results

[_dobbo_]

I finally got around to having my first roll of 120mm film processed from my Holga 120.

Hectic light leaks and vignetting are the order of the day - I actually quite like the effect. However focusing is very hit and miss since you can't see through the lens, and as a result a few of these haven't come out sharp. At all! At 50p a photo, mistakes will get costly quite quickly.

Anyway I thought I'd share for no reason other than "why not?"

None of these have been processed except for levels adjustments because I haven't set my scanner up properly. I know they are all covered in dust and shite, but I like that and am too lazy to clean my scanner...



Holga packaging


Clevedon (8 seconds hand held, totally guessed the exposure)




Exit left


Earphones


Flowers


I think this whole lomography thing is an acquired taste. I'm yet to decide if I'm acquiring it or not... Time for roll number two and more experiments.

edited to fix picture links

Edited by _dobbo_ on Wednesday 6th February 19:22

[RobDickinson]

Nice, worth a play eh!

Is the vignetting supposed to be that bad?

Love the look of these, wouldnt want one as my main camera tho..

[TheCaseAce]

That beach shot is cool.

Never heard of the Holga before but it looks like fun

Seems to me the focus is consistently a little bit behind where you're expecting it, which is weird.

[RobDickinson]

Theres little if any control on a holga (2 fstops etc), I doubt theres focusing? Prolly all that stuff is too near, infront of the minimum focus point/DoF.

[CivicMan]

The laugh is that if David Bailey had produced a coffee table book of these type of photos, the critics would be raving over them! Such is fame.....
I like the beach shot!

[_dobbo_]

As Rob says, the controls on the Holga are "limited". You have two shutter speeds, 1/100th, or bulb. Also two apertures, f8 or f11

Focus wise your choices are these:



Which appear to be "Portrait, group, big group, mountain." Very scientific...

The difficulty is not being able to focus in the view finder. I think what this first roll of film has taught me is that you can't focus very close at all - the three of these that are out of focus (flowers, packaging and headphones) were all shot at the closest setting. So in future I'll know you can't get that close to the subject.

I'd probably cheat in future and use the D200 to meter the scene at f/8, then use bulb mode and manaully control the shutter speed accordingly.

Rob - I don't know if the vignetting is supposed to be that severe - it certainly seems to be much worse with the onboard flash. I like it though!

[bramley]

I like the prinicple of lomo, and I have some photoshop actions to recreate the look of lomo. A chap at work is into lomo and he showed me a photobook of his lomo stuff. truly inspiring, but getting in the mindset is difficult. The idea being "don't think just shoot" and he pulled it off really well. I've tried to shoot like that, but just find I rattle off hundreds of shots and bin them all later!

[CAB]

can i ask where you got the camera from?

Seem to be a few to choose from;

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/New-Lomo-Holga-135-BC-135BC-...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Lomo-LC-A-Classic-Cult-Camer...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/HOLGA-120GN-120-GN-CAMERA-De...

e bay as always seems to be the main purveyor

Edited by CAB on Tuesday 12th February 22:15

[_dobbo_]

Bramley - the Holga came with a lomography book. It proffers as you say 'Don't think, shoot'. With digital that's exactly what I do, but at £3.00 to process and up to £3.00 per roll of film I find it hard to reconcile this attitude with the costs involved.

Thus I find myself thinking much more about my composition, and worrying as a result whether it's all a bit contrived. The book I mentioned contains some mind blowing images that my ego wont allow me to believe are 'shot from the hip', I just can't accept that. As such I find myself wondering if I'm really suited to this lomo lark. That said, I'm really enjoying the process of shooting with film - for now.

CAB - my Holga came from a branch of "Urban Outfitters" in Las Vegas, and set me back £35.

The model designations determine the features. Mine is a CFN and has an onboard flash. The 120GN ebay link you post looks compelling - a hot shoe would be a real benefit, as it would allow a decent flash to be attached.

I picked up a fisheye2 at the same time for £35, also very interesting, and presents all sorts of challenges of it's own

[nick_bbb]

Cool, I fancy a go at these. I've had my eye on a Diana...

http://www.lomography.com/diana/

Where did you get your film devleoped Dobbo?

[_dobbo_]

Yo Nick. I was planning to send my film to peak imaging, but with postage a single roll would have cost me £5.80 odd. I popped into a very small local Fujifilm shop and they did it for me in one hour for £3. Shame they don't sell 120mm film though, need to find a local supplier.

I'll definately go back I think - since I have no frame of reference I couldn't say if the processing is any good or not. The quality of the pictures isn't high enough to care much about the quality of the developing in any case!

[nick_bbb]

Cheers Ben

I notice on the Diana it tells you how far away the focus point is, so the portrait symbol is 1.2m I guess you need to find out where yours are. I'm off to New York in April and might pick one up so that I can take that out at night rather than lugging all my other gear around. Compact digital cameras don't do anything for me.

[nick_bbb]

I've been pointed at a great tutorial site from another forum, focusing distances are here...

http://www.squarefrog.co.uk/holga-basics-focus.htm...

[PJR]

_dobbo_ said:

I picked up a fisheye2 at the same time for £35, also very interesting, and presents all sorts of challenges of it's own

I have one of those too, and I love it to bits. Its brilliant. I always liked the FishEye effect. But its usually very expensive to do. Be it digital or film. So this is a nice way to play with the effect for not a lot of money.
I also had a Lomo FishEye 1. The 2 is better, but there isn't a lot in it really. I gave the FishEye 1 to a friend.
Can slap up some example picts later if anyone is interested.
Again, they are limited, but there is no focus to worry about at all. And the FishEye's do need quite a bit of light for a good pict. Oh and the flash on them is near enough useless because it throws out such a narrow spread of light compared to what the lens can capture. So the result is that most of the pict is black, with just a small'ish area of illuminated pict in the middle. It gets worse too.. The lens itself obscures the flash and casts a curved shadow.
Still a great cam though

P,

Edited by PJR on Saturday 9th February 19:32

[_dobbo_]

nick_bbb said:

I've been pointed at a great tutorial site from another forum, focusing distances are here...

http://www.squarefrog.co.uk/holga-basics-focus.htm...

Thanks Nick, very useful. I was actually planning on marking out measurements on the floor and checking the focal distance for each - you've just saved me £6 in wasted film and processing!

PJR said:

And the FishEye's do need quite a bit of light for a good pict. Oh and the flash on them is near enough useless because it throws out such a narrow spread of light compared to what the lens can capture. So the result is that most of the pict is black, with just a small'ish area of illuminated pict in the middle. It gets worse too.. The lens itself obscures the flash and casts a curved shadow.
Still a great cam though

I found all these things out with my first roll - it was the only Camera my wife would let me use at our Wedding party, so all my first film was shot with flash, and has the exact issues you describe.

I've whacked some ISO400 Ilford B&W film in it now just to see how it goes. This time round I've been using my SB600 flash in the hot shoe, maybe that's cheating but I don't care!



Edit, I popped into town today and picked up a roll of Fuji Provia at Jessops, and it occurs to me that the film is in no way 120mm in size, and that no-where on the packaging does it reference millimeters alongside the 120, so I'm guessing I'm completely wrong calling it 120mm film and should call it something else!

Edited by _dobbo_ on Saturday 9th February 20:06

[tank slapper]

_dobbo_ said:

Edit, I popped into town today and picked up a roll of Fuji Provia at Jessops, and it occurs to me that the film is in no way 120mm in size, and that no-where on the packaging does it reference millimeters alongside the 120, so I'm guessing I'm completely wrong calling it 120mm film and should call it something else!

120 is the Kodak designation for that type of film - it doesn't refer to the size of the negative. There are several that are similar size, eg 220 which doesn't have backing paper and is twice the length, or the 620 which used a narrower diameter spool. 35mm film was designated 135 and is actually 35mm wide.

More info here

[CAB]

PJR said:

Can slap up some example picts later if anyone is interested.


P,

Would be interested to see them if you have a chance...

[tog]

There's piece on the Apple website about VII photographer John Stanmeyer, and a project he's shooting for National Geographic and using Holga 120 cmeras. It's an advert for Aperture really, but there's some nice stuff shown shot with the Holga.

http://www.apple.com/aperture/profiles/stanmeyer.h...

[_dobbo_]

Roll number two back from processing today. Progress! Firstly, some of them are actually in focus. Colour and exposure seems to be a bit more consistent, the difference I think was using ISO400 film instead of ISO100

The scans are a bit inconsistent - I think I need to calibrate my scanner but have no idea where to start... Levels adjustments and resize only on these.




A car shot - this is PH after all!





Only other one of interest - what happens when you hand the camera to your wife to hold, and she hands it back with the back cover hanging off;

tog said:

There's piece on the Apple website about VII photographer John Stanmeyer

Seems Apple have removed this link, which is a shame, I was interested to see it.

Edited by _dobbo_ on Tuesday 12th February 22:16

[tog]

_dobbo_ said:

tog said:

There's piece on the Apple website about VII photographer John Stanmeyer

Seems Apple have removed this link, which is a shame, I was interested to see it.

Edited by _dobbo_ on Tuesday 12th February 22:16

A new version of Aperture came out today and it appears they've rejigged the pages. However, if you go the VII photographers website and find the multimedia page, scroll down to 'Bali Mystics' by John Stanmeyer, and there's a slideshow of images, all Holga shots. All he was saying in the video was that although Aperture is widely known for its Raw image handling, it is also good for tweaking his scans from film (Kodak 400CN). There was a little clip of him sliding the highlight and shadow levels about. He also made a comment about the Holga not being 100% light-tight, so all his had to be taped up!

I like your VX on the beach photo