More exposure control on Holga?

I've been thinking a buying a Holga for fine art work but would like

more control over exposure - rather than the fixed shutter speed

supplied. Has anyone out there successfully added a shutter

from another camera to the Holga or grafted the Holga lens to a

camera with better controls?

 

I've seen a Holga with a Lubitel shutter at

http://www.holgamods.com/shutter/shutter.html but since I

mainly do landscapes I'm worried that with the lens mounted

further away from the film plane than usual that it will no longer

focus at infinity.

 

Another way of doing things might be to remove the plastic Holga

lens element and remount in the shutter assembly of a suitable

6x6 camera to retain the Holga 'look'.

 

Has anybody managed to create the kind of hybrid camera that

I'm thinking of or can recommend a suitable donor cameras /

shutters that might get things working.

 

Any help would be very much appreciated!

I hold ND filters in front of the lens. Works fine. My Holga seems to be about EV 13.5, with an aperture somewhere around f/12, though I didn't measure it very explicitly.

 

Maybe shooting a Lubitel wide open would give you what you want (yes, you'll also get fuzzy images, dark corners and light leaks, trust me on that one).

I thought this would be a problem too when I first got mine but if you shoot B&W or color neg the wide latitude is usually enough and I more "control" exposure by using a 100 or 400 speed film. The ND filter idea is a good one too.

The problem with remounting the Holga lens in another camers is that the Holga is about 65 mm focal length (slightly wide even for the "native" 6x4.5 format of the original Holga 120S), while other 6x6 cameras invariably have at least a 75 mm lens, mostly 80 mm; I don't recall even seeing a 6x4.5 folder with a lens as short as 65 mm.

 

Sure, there are ways around this -- most simply, mounting a weak negative diopter in front. The same is true of regaining infinity focus with a shutter mod, or when adding a Polaroid back (which moves the film plane back significantly, so the Holga's lens covers the full 3x3 image area of Type 8X series films). Any friendly optician should be able to supply a suitable lens, potentially as weak as -1/8 diopter, optically centered in a circular edge; it'll then be up to you to mount it. It might also be possible to alter the Holga's focusing stops to go a suitable distance "beyond infinity", then realign the scale -- with any other camera, the warning would be that this will tend to change the spherical aberration characteristics of the lens, but with a Holga you'd likely never notice.

With some films you can also get additional exposure control by increasing or decreasing the development time. Diafine approximately doubles your speed in most films.

With inexpensive, light-weight cameras it is also practical to carry two. I've done that in the past with the Brownie Hawkeye Flash with one loaded with 100-speed and the other with 400. That pretty well takes care of the whole gamut of exposure possibilities.

I'm in the middle of trying to mount an old Kodak Ball Bearing (From a Kodak 3a Autographic) shutter to a Holga. Others have mounted an old Agfa Isollete shutters to a Holga. Both would give you total control of the apeture and shutter speed. You need to make sure the lens is the same distance to the film as before, or you lose the cool Holga effects. It's one of my back burning projects that I hope to finish on a rainy day soon, but don't count on it...

Cheers guys - all good solutions.

 

Donald - If I was to mount the Holga lens / element into a 75mm

/ 80mm camera and use a diopter to regain infinity focus would it

also effect the coverage of the lens etc...

 

Steve - I'm really interested in seeing your project and how you

approached this problem. Any further details (or pics) would be

excellent. Let's just hope you have plenty of rainy days ahead of

you...

Steve, mounting a diopter to correct focal length *shouldn't* change the coverage angle -- which means it might slightly reduce the light falloff, since the area coverage will be slightly increased if you increase the focal length by 10-15 mm. That's how the Holgaroid gets away with covering the full 3x3 Type 8X frame.

 

The big trick is likely to be finding a weak enough negative diopter.

Steve....................I gotta admire your determination, that's why I know you'll come up w/something, I know how you feel..........'it's there off in the distance, not close enough so you can make it out, but it's there'.

 

There are some cameras of metal construction, you may know of them already, that are as cheap as the Holga with a little more sophistication and none of the Holga's bad side, like the Dicora Digna, with its central tube, which may afford you an opportunity to modify the existing shutter, or machine the tube down with regard to your infinity issues...... these cameras are dirt cheap.

 

Go here, http://www.merrillphoto.com/DecoraDigna.htm , this website is a candystore, and this address has a picture of a Dicora Digna and the kind of pictures it takes.

Sorry to bother you all again, but I had a brain-wave last night.

 

Since most 6x6 camera seem to be built around lenses of

70-80mm focal length - how about mounting the Holga lens onto

an old folding rangefinder that has a bellows?

 

In theory the bellows should make it fairly easy to reposition the

front standard assembly so that the lens is now the correct

distance from the film plane. What do you all think?

 

The only problem is that my knowledge of old folders is

practically zero. Has anybody got any suggestions for a

candidate camera that I could perform this on fairly easily?

 

My only requirements are that it take 120 film, have a good

shutter with plenty of settings (including 'B'), a tripod socket and

be able to take a cable release.

 

Please put a tortured soul out of his misery!

Late 6x6 bellows folder-type cameras mostly have only one position for the lens, that is, with the struts extended and locked. The focusing is done on the lens unit.

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If you want to focus with the bellows you need an older plate camera. You focus by racking the bellows in and out. Some can take a roll film holder, or you may need to adapt in some way like this one:

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<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/2958953-lg.jpg"><p>

The shutter on this 1927c 6.5x9cm Voigtlander Vag is B, T, 1s, and up to /125, and from f4.5 to f25 (old style). It takes a cable release, but no flash. By trimming the edges on the Mamiya 6x7 RFH, it slides into place. The only 'issue' is focusing, which in this case takes careful thought as there's a 2mm difference between the RFH film plane and the settings of the original distance scale.

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If you find something like this, you'll likely find a good lens in a good shutter, or a bad lens in a bad shutter - both can be changed, but if you find a good one you can unscrew the lens cells for later. Worth keeping and using as is! There are probably quite a few around on the market from the many different makers, but finding light-tight bellows won't be easy after 70+ years. Good luck.