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I’m a wandering Filipina-German living in Manila. Flower child and moonlighter at heart, I dream, write, photograph, (model sometimes), and specialize in content and user experience design
Holga 101: Getting to Know Your Holga
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“Take your Holga out for a ride. Stop often. Play.”, Kit Frost
The Holga is a pretty simple, low-cost camera. It’s made almost entirely out of plastic, and uses a low-contrast plastic lens. It’s a toy camera, after all, but the way the Holga sees the world is entirely different. It procures soft, dreamy photographs with vignetting and occasional light leaks that feel almost more solid and real than the actual subject.
If you’re used to arbitrary standard straight-edge, rectangle images, the holga lets you explore a refreshingly different side of photography. If you think about it, the Holga pretty much sees the same way we do. The way the images present, sharp in the center and vignettes around the corners, is how our vision works and processes the space we live in. Sharp on the focal point, and kind of blurring out into our peripherals.
From shooting landscapes, to still life, street photography, and others, your pictures aren’t coming out “perfect”, or the very least, perfect in the traditional sense of the word. Shooting with a medium format film (120 film), they’ll be surprisingly detailed and square shaped instead of the usual 3x5 and 4x6 dimensions, with a plastic lens making everything dreamy--the OG in Instagram’s formula for success.
Whether you’re a seasoned pro, or beginner in photography, the Holga veers away from our obsession over details, accumulating gear, and accessories.
Let Go of Pretense |
The Holga summons up Dadaist traditions of chance, surprise, and willingness to see what happens. -Robert Hirsch, Photographic Historian.
Stop often and play. Mess around and go crazy with these little pieces of cheap plastic. You never know how your frame will turn out. Accidental double exposures, neighboring frames, light leaks, and vignetting--all offer an element of surprise to your photographs. Instead of fretting over the finer technical details, focus on composition.
Ideal Shooting Conditions
The limited Holga settings place much of the control and flexibility in the film itself. Steer clear of shadowy places, unless you have a high speed film (at least 1600 speed) or flash.
Utilize different film speeds for shooting in a range of conditions from cloudy weather to sunny outdoors, or poor indoor lighting.
Modifying your Holga
There are so many ways of modifying the Holga camera. A Holga leaks light from all over its body, from the camera’s film counter window, back and edges, and even the shiny black finish inside, bouncing light all over the place. You can cut down this effect by covering the back of the camera (where the film counter is) with electrical or duct tape. Many paint the interior matte black.
If you get “neighboring frames”, your back may have been set incorrectly, not because of any need for tension adjustment. To get perfectly spaced frames, make sure you wind it correctly, and point the arrow to 12 and not 16, if you’re shooting with the square insert.
You can also use 35mm film with your Holga with 35mm film, which lets you create interesting photos with a wider horizontal length that fill the entire film area, including the sprocket holes.
Buttons, Settings, and Variations
The Holga isn’t overrun with a million settings. You won’t be having a hard time getting familiar with everything. There’s the cloudy/sunny switch. Make sure you focus the camera beforehand. There’s also the nifty B-N switch at the bottom of your Holga. N stands for Normal, which is the usual setting.
On the other hand, B stands for “bulb” which allows the shutter to remain open as long as your finger is pressed down. A tripod or extremely steady hand will allow some incredible long exposures.
Usually, Holgas use a 60mm lens with two aperture settings (f/8 and f/11). The first is for sunny days, while the other one is when the clouds roll through. There’s a switch to select between the two, a fixed 1/100 shutter speed.
Ever since the original model was produced, many newer variations provide its own set of added options: a 3D stereo version, panoramic version, built-in flash, tripod mount, glass lens, pinhole version, twin lens reflex version (TLR), and more.
Focusing
There are four focus marks on the lens to help you use the setting that is most ideal for your shooting situation. The drawing of a guy focuses the lens at a distance of 3 ft. or one meter. The family drawing allows 6 ft. or 2 meters. The third drawing of a group allows 18 ft or 6 meters
This doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t choose anything in between when you’re feeling adventurous!
Multiple Exposures
The shutter mechanism is independent of the film advance knob. You’re entirely free to exercise your creative choices, advance the film only once, and capture as many exposures on the same frame as you like till you're completely ready to move on to the next frame.
Life can appear like a barrage of industrial chaos, sometimes pointless--often ridiculous. SUVs roaring past a cathedral, sermons heard coming from an electronics store, noisy car horns amidst street vendors selling beautiful roses, all calling for attention. Wherever you are, the Holga lets you capture the cynical eccentricity or natural beauty in the culture of our surroundings. With its lightweight, small build, carry it around absolutely everywhere. Toss it in your bag, and just go!