Holga and Lomo style

Hey there

 

I began with a DSLR (canon eos 350D) into photography a couple of months ago. I

spent a thousand dollars in some cool and sharp lenses, and I believe I am the

limiting factor in the pics I take. Admiting one's limitations they say, it's a

sign of wisdom. Hence I admit I believe I need some field training with "low

resource photography", as the pictures I take are quite boring (see my portfolio

for more references).

 

I was thinking about getting a Holga. I have seen different places with

different prices and include different stuff in starter kits (ranging from $20

to $100). So I was wondering which one to get and where (on ebay for example,

there's plenty of models to choose from).

 

So plastic lenses or glass (suprisingly the 120GFN seems to be cheaper than the

120FN)?

Built in flash or one with hotshoe (I got this inexpensive flash from a pawn

shop for $5)?

 

Is it really expensive to develop in 120mm? as I never touched the stuff I got

no clue.

 

Comments are welcome,

J.

Forgot to say,

 

I reside in Spain (Europe), so places that only ship to the US et al are useless for me.

I had the opportunity not long ago to meet a great photographer in his office. I saw he had a HOLGA lying on top of a pile of papers. I smiled, pointed to it, and said "me too I have one, those toy cameras are funny, right ? " He then looked at me with a serious face and said " those aren't toys", he then showed me his work with Holga 120 SF. I understood then what means "the photographer takes the photo, not the camera", I also undeerstood that I'll need ten more years of experience before using my Holga again. I believe the best camera is the one you know best. Shooting with HOLGA is hard because you need to have the habit of the light conditions. Also, composing with a HOLGA isn't easy. Composition and light are everything.

My vote is for the Holga with the glass lens. The glass lens is a bit sharper, but still has that

dreamy look to it. I've seen some good shots taken with the built in flash, but I think in most

cases you won't really use it. Yann, is dead on as well. The Holga is mostly about compostion

and the correct light conditions. I think it will only help you with your DSLR shooting, so it's

not a bad thing. 4 of the 5 photos I have in my portfolio here are from my Holga. They may

be plastic "toy" cameras, but they can produce really interesting captures. Get one on eBay,

they have people who ship them to other places than just the USA. Good luck and have fun!

so what kind of controls do you have with the holga? can you control how long does it expose or the aperture? Or that is prefixed like in the old 35mm compact cameras.

You have NO controls with the Holga. No aperture selection, no shutter speed, no focus. Though the materials and configuration is different, they are essentially the same as the 1920's box cameras, only the old box cameras were better made.

 

My personal opinion is that if a formerly all-digital photographer wants to learn the basics of classic film photography, the Holga may be more of a dissapointment than a benefit. I think that you need some control over what you are doing, especially if you are trying to learn a new skill. At mimimum you need those three essential controls; aperature selection, shutter speed and focus. Everything else is mearly superfluous bells and whistles.

 

Perhaps you might consider finding and old twin lens reflex or a folding camera. One of the best things about the world-wide rush into digital technology has been the number of wonderful and still working old classic 120 cameras to be found in pawnbroker's shops. For the price of a new plastic toy Holga you can probably find a genuine jewell of a camera that was built before the idea of built-in obsolescence was thought of.

 

120 is inexpensive if you develop your own B&W film.

[[You have NO controls with the Holga. No aperture selection, no shutter speed, no focus. ]]

 

Clearly you've not actually used a Holga.

 

The 120N (and its series) has Bulb mode, which allows shutter speed selections of your own choosing. The Holga has a lens that will focus from 3 feet to infinity smoothing.

 

J. Soler,

 

Buy from Holgamods.com. You'll get an aperture selection in addition to slightly closer focusing. He ships internationally.

 

Otherwise, if you buy one locally, you can easily modify it for aperture selection yourself. Instructions are on the web at a number of sites.

I use an early S model, that which gained Holga the fame it currently has. Any "new & improved" gadjets that they now put on these things in order to justify the higher prices (for what is essentially a five-dollar camera)defete the entire purpose. Glass lens on a Holga? Why? If it is sharpness someone wants, then they should save up their money and purchase a Rolleiflex.

 

As for focus; without any reliable distance scale or rangefinder, focus is a hit or miss affair. In experienced hands this is not such a grave issue; however to a beginner the lack of focusing finess may well prove too discouraging. My point was simple; for someone like the original poster, it would be better to learn medium format film photography on an all-manual camera of somwhat higher quality than a Holga. After the basics are learned THEN would be a far better time to experiment with something as quirky as a toy camera.

 

"Clearly you've not actually used a Holga."

 

Clearly you've not actually looked at my portfolio.

i view the holga as a composition tool. with barely no controls at all (i also have one from

holgamods.com, which gives me a real 2 apertures) you are freed up to focus on making

good images, not fine-tuning your PS skills. i also frequently go out with only 1 roll of

film, so i am very conscious of choosing each shot very carefully. with my digital, and a

day out with the kids on a hike, it is real common for me to come home with 400 pictures

to edit through, but when i take the holga out, it is an entirely different type of day. i

would say if you just want to focus on composition, get a holga, if you want to focus on

the technical aspects of cameras, get a yashica-mat or even and older 35mm mechanical

camera.

if you would rather focus on your 350, go out and buy a 64 or 128 meg card and just take

one lens and the tiny card out for a day of shooting, really watching what you are doing.

you might be shocked at the results you get.

Thanks for the tips everybody.

 

The thing is I bought in a pawn shop a canon eos 500 (actually I traded it over for a playstation 2). I believe the model is called Rebel XS in the USA. So when I want to take pictures that I really have to think about, I use that one.

 

It might not look as dark and dreamlike like with a holga or a lomo, but it feels like a whole new world for me (despite is older than the digital SLR era...). Controls are similar to what I have with my 350D and I can even fit my 350D lenses!

 

I thought about the holga though, because I thought it would give me a depth and an experience into photography that I lack (after all, I lack a frame of decades using 35mm as most of you guys have).

Lookat the stuff I have started doing with a holga. I like it alot . I use only Diafine to develop my Holga film and it seems to give me that little extra edge with the negative. I scan on an Epson 3170 that is 4 or so years old.

 

Since I got my Holga I am taking alot more time looking through the viewfinder getting things the way I want them.

 

http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=745303

 

http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=746992

 

Larry<div></div>

Long ago, before the digital revolution people did something called reading books. In those days you spent months reading about the art of lighting and composition and exposure before spending big bucks on a professional camera. A Holga will not teach you any more about photography than your dSLR. In the end, you will still have boring photos, except they will be boring square photos with fuzzy corners.

 

My first suggestion is try to find some books and read them... books on learning photography litter used book stores, they can be had for very cheap... in fact much cheaper than a Holga, and def cheaper than buying film and having it processed for the Holga. Stay away from books on "Glamour" photography and focus on ones about the basics. You will notice when you start looking that most of these books talk almost entirely about Black and White photography.

 

My second suggestion is try shooting in Black and White. Kodak makes a Black and White film called 400CN that can be processed at just about any local drug store. Black and White was always considered the beginners level for photography. One reason is because you could process the film yourself, (which I doubt you want to get into) and the other is because it forces your mind to only think about light and composition. Color is a step higher than B&W because you have to think about light, composition, color saturation and color contrast... thats alot more to think about!

 

My third suggestion is to get a cheap 35mm camera. Preferably something without zoom. A zoom lens adds a level of complexity. Its most important to focus your mind on moving the camera around to get your composition and lighting you want. Even a disposable camera could be considered a good learning tool. One important thing is if you are attempting to learn about composition, you want to make sure the learning tool has the same proportions as your nice camera. Whats the use in learning all about making beautiful square images on the Holga when you are planning on moving "up" to the dSLR with 2/3s proportions? Going to film will also help make you more decisive about shots. With digital its easy to fill up a card with terrible photos of nothing. With film, the more horrible photos you take, the more your wallet will hurt. Its hard to imagine, but for many people who shoot film its hard to use up a 36 exposure roll! Thats because they have been decisive and cut questionable shots out, and only pushed the shutter release when they knew the shot was perfect.

 

My fourth suggestion, buy yourself the Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens. Its very decently priced, but its an excellent lens. Why would you want a cheap non-zoom lens you ask? Because its a learning tool. In the entire history of 35mm cameras up until the 1980s, most cameras came with a 50mm fixed lens. Many people consider that to be the perfect focal length. Also the f/1.8 lens is very fast, faster than most of the Canon line, so you can turn off that terrible flash and use beautiful natural light. The fixed 50mm focal length works for landscapes if you take a few steps back, and works for portraits if you take a few steps forward. The point is to focus your mind on making a great photo. Zoom lenses tend to make you spend your time zooming in and out while standing firmly planted in once place like a tree. If you are constantly moving with the camera, you are more likely to stumble upon a better angle than you would with the zoom. Moving forward and backwards actually changes the lighting, perspective, things become obscured by other things, things come into the shot or slide out of it. Its amazing how much a very small scene changes as you walk around it. You are not out there just "taking photographs"... you are HUNTING for images.

 

I WOULD suggest selling all that auto-focus digital stuff and going to a manual film camera, but thats a whole OTHER conversation all together. ;)

What Patrick Dempsey says seems very reasonable to me... Excepted for 400CN, I find Ilford XP2 much better, but it's only a matter of taste.

First of all thanks for the suggestions. I'm definetly going to go the old way by the book. The thing is I tried to do all that on the net, as there seem to be lots of free resources.

 

As for the cannon 50mm/f1.4 , I already own it (along with a 70-200mm/f4 L), and I have issues getting a good composition with it , as with my 350D crop factor everything seems zoomed in, I have the DOF the diameter of a nickle coin, and I have little/no use for indoors photography with it (I have a thread opened at http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00Lsyi ). I'm replacing it with a 30mm/1.4 or 1.8.

 

On the other hand, when I put it on the the 500N (the film camera I mentioned before) the 50mm/1.4 is closer to what I see with bare eye.

 

I'm definetly sticking with a format I feel comfortable with (APS size sensor DSLR, and with the 350D I can even shoot in B/W),instead of jumping to another in an attempt to make my pictures look better. Suits my budget and my needs.

 

Thanks again, for the guidance.

f/1.4 is almost useless for a beginner. If you ever do try to use it wide open theres way too little to work with. f/1.8 is not going to be noticably slower and f/1.8 lenses are usually dramatically cheaper than their f/1.4 cousins for only 1/2 a stop speed gained! In general, f/1.8 lenses tend to be sharper than f/1.4's as well... although not always the case.

 

Notice that going to 30mm will give you more depth of feild at the same aperture. If you want to work with comfortable depth of feild, keep it above f/2.8... beginners are usually instructed to shoot in bright daylight, which helps eliminate focus issues because of the tiny aperture sizes. If you want a nice area in focus and still want a fuzzy background f/5.6 or even f/8 on a longer lens will work fine. .. but this is all stuff you should be reading about.

 

30mm is the equivalent of 50mm for full frame... I didnt realize you were talking about an APS sensor... Canon REALLY should have some kind of notation in the name of the camera that lets us know its a different format... (Anybody remember when cameras had clever names like 645 and 67 to let you know the format?)

 

No doubt the internet is a great resource, but nothing beats a nice book you can stick in your back pocket and pull out to read for a few minutes. Sometimes what seems like innane and obvious information really hits home when you are in the field looking at the exact situations portrayed in the text.

Ok finally I know it deviates a lot from the subject, but to close, what books would you recommend me?

 

So far I've found googling some:

- "Langford's Starting Photography" by M. Langford and Philip Andrews

- "The Digital Photography Book" by Scott Shelby

- "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Petterson

I wouldnt really know what to recommend. If I was you I would go to a used book store and browse the art/photography section and see what comes up. Look at the photographs in the book. Most of these kinds of books the author has taken the photos... if the photos suck, dont get the book! When you find someone doing photographs you think are interesting, see if they discuss composition and how to photograph different scenes using natural light. You might have to shop around to see something you like. I couldnt recommend anything online or any book in particular because I dont know what you like.

 

I have several old pocket-sized paper-back books from the 1950s and 1960s. These books are great because they cover lots of ground, they fit easily in a pocket or small camera bag, and used they probably cost $2. One is called "Composition for the photographer" or something amazing witty like that. Or you can look at some books on art appreciation, art textbooks, or drawing or painting books and see if any discuss composition. Composition with a photograph is really no different than composition in a drawing or painting. Once you learn some of the basic ideas that artists have been using for over 500 years, you will begin to be able to not only pick out those basic compositional elements in famous works of art, but be able to line them up in your viewfinder as well.

 

After basic composition, you can start thinking about things like depth of field and then you start getting into issues where lenses matter. Photography is art, regardless of the subject matter or the equiptment used, or the experience level of the person taking the photographs. Learning about composition, line quality, contrast, color theory and presentation WILL help you create beautiful photographs. I went to art school and spent alot of money to learn those things, but most of my friends learned them from reading, going to art galleries and learning how to open their eyes and see as an artist. Theres plenty of technical information to learn about how to operate cameras... but if you focus on a self-education about creating images

check out anything by Henry Horenstein... he is an instructor, has several books out, but

he is also an accomplished fine art photographer with several books of his art under his

belt. he is a master worth checking out.

patrick, all digital slr's are crop sensor cameras, except for canon's 5d and 1ds mark II... it

would make more sense for those 2 cameras to advertise in their name that they were full

size sensors.

in regards to the 50mm, beware of the 1.8, it is really a piece of junk compared to the 1.4,

even if you don't need the extra aperture, if you can swing the 1.4 it will last you longer

and you will be happier with the sharpness of the photos and the build quality of the lens.

Holgas are toys. They can produce some really interesting pictures, but they give you

almost no control.

 

The Lomo is worse, because it purports to be a decent camera but is built like crap.

 

My advice is to get an old meniscus lens put into a modern barrel and use that on a real

camera for Holga type shots.

 

I have seen some pretty intricate etch-a-sketch drawings that are definitely art, but the

device itself is still a toy.

Andrew

 

I am in the process of mounting a lens like you describe on a Kiev 60. the lens came out of an old Kodak 620 camera and the mount is being made from plastic cardboard and foil. I will post some when I get the thing put together.

 

Larry

Awesome.

 

I have a few old lenses that I am considering making mounts for out of a toilet paper tube.