Holga Lens Test Part 1

Well I went out one afternoon and did some very simple tests with my Holga lens on my Nikon D800 DSLR. It was fun, a new exploration. One of the mysteries of shooting with film on a Holga still rings true. The fixed f8 aperture makes it so dark you can barely see viewfinder. Would be nice to have a finder I could mount on the hot shoe, but whatever. It’s a cheap-o plastic lens, what more do you want?

So I made some basic shots just up and down my street using some simple subject matter in bright sunlight.

The original Holga manual (I still have mine) says to use ISO400 film. So I set the ISO to 400. The Holga lens is fixed at f8, and the shutter speed is an estimated 1/100th of a second, so that is where I set mine. Exosure was too hot so I took it down to 1/60th, though I can (and probably will) do a more accurate test of the correct exposure for future images.

The following 3 images are just a basic exposure, with no raw correction. I am not sure what the focus was doing, so I guess I need to do some testing with that as well. Looks like Holga!

One thing I did notice is the vignette-it seems off. Holga used 120 medium format film, a larger image size than my full frame DLSR. I know there is a vignette with all Holga cameras, but I would expect less of it on the 135mm frame. It’s nice, but as a person who likes to make images awesome, I like to add vignette myself. But I guess that is opposite of what this is: junk photography.

Junk Photography

I often reminisce about the days of film and the occasional “happy accidents” that might happen on any shoot, be it professional of just for fun. Digital has brought us the ability to create images and see the result instantaneously, fixing problems and deleting them before the clients get their eyes on them. Film was another story, of course. Even if you know the film (stock, batch and shelf life), camera, and lighting, there was an occasional surprise, be it a bad exposure or a magic moment captured accidentally.

I also think about what I call the “Junk Photography” movement, where people would use crappy cameras and lenses to create some kind of old retro look. Shooting with cameras with plastic lenses, be it a Holga camera or a Lomo got interesting results. Instagram has pretty much replaced this, and the photography hipsters have embraced it.

I have many cameras new and old, and though I have no desire to get rid of my film cameras, I really do not use them anymore. I have no idea what the cost would be but I imagine these days, processing and printing of negative film (be it color or black & white) is quite expensive. Still I really miss those days and wish there was a way to go back. Maybe halfway?

Well I have found a way. I purchased this Holga lens from the internet for about 14 bucks.

After slapping it on my Nikon, I was forced to remember just how low-end the Holga is. There is noting here, just a fixed aperture, and a jenky focus that will get you maybe close to what you want. Looking through the view finder on a sunny day is a futile attempt, so I found I’m missing the Holga finder at the top of the camera.

Stay tuned for some pictures with this lens….

Retro lenses on digital? Sign me up!

OMGosh do I ever love my old camera collection, but unfortunately my desire for instant gratification, coupled with my lack of desire to spend money on film and processing, (and lets not even get to the issue with the envionment-chemicals are such a bummer)… I have pretty much neglected them. They now populate a spot in my basement, and they have done nothing for like 20 years.

But now that can be over! I found this little gem on the internets and gives me some hope that maybe those cameras, or at least the glass will be utilized. See, when digital was just becoming a thing, I was graduating from college with a soon to be useless degree in commercial, analog, film photography. I was totally broke with a very sweet Toyo GX yaw free 4x5 and a bunch of other stuff, but all anyone wanted was digital.

I always wished there was a digital thingy you could stuff into a camera, maybe shaped like a roll of film so you could take digital shots with your Holga, or Lomo, or maybe that Russian made CMEHA camera with a plastic lens. Well maybe you can, and someone tried to do that. Well kinda like that.

Check out this vid below by Becca Farsace telling the story about her build of a Raspberry Pi camera with the c mount lenses:

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Well…it sounds like its not quite ready for prime time but I’m sure some nerd will get the code right sometime in the future, and who knows what will be possible then? My C-Mount lenses might have a purpose after all. My strange cameras with weird glass might be coming back out. Maybe I can even dig out the old enlarger lenses I saved for who know what reason.

Maybe some interesting light leaks and distortions too. None of that crappy instagram fake stuff for me!

Stay tuned!