Portrait 1 - Tom Glagow, owner of C.A.R.E. Music Group - Portrait by Peter Nitsch.
So what is a Holga and what’s the story behind them and what is that turned an unassuming simple, inexpensive, plastic camera into a modern day cultural icon? Basically a Holga is a simple film camera made and invented by Mr T.M. Lee in Hong Kong in 1969. It is made almost entirely out of plastic and the build quality would certainly raise an eyebrow or two if you compared it to modern digital cameras. Well, I definitely like the golden sticker that is attached to each lens: “PASSED Q.C.” Yeah!
And unpredictability is THE main feature of Holga cameras and lenses. Not a word most normal photographers would like associated with images that come out of their camera. But then Holga photographers are not your normal everyday folk!
Holga Lens (HL-C) attached to Canon EOS 5d MKII.
Digital Holga Wide and Tele Lenses.
These days you’re also able to have fun with Holga and your professional DSLR like Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Olympus or Sony. The installation of the Digital Holga Lens adaptor to your camera will turn the clock back on your electronic box of tricks. You can use for example the Digital Holga Ultimate Kit ($71.99) to put some daydream awesomeness to your DSLR. And what was once a hi-tech digital SLR now takes on all the characteristics that I have come to love of the Holga camera. No additional modification to the camera or lens and film developing is necessary!
Once you have the HL-C lens on your DSLR you can then add any of the other lenses to the front of the HL-C for different effects. They all can be used for your DSLR (in conjunction with the HL-C) and in addition they all can also be used for Holga film cameras.
Portrait 2 - Tom Glagow, owner of C.A.R.E. Music Group - Portrait by Peter Nitsch.
Rick from Holga Direct was kind enough to send me the Digital Holga Ultimate Kit for testing and review. I decided to take some portrait shots with Tom Glagow, owner of C.A.R.E. Music Group. The Holga lens-setup was perfect to put Tom in a Jazzy-looking portrait series putting on his glasses. The short series has been shot with the Standard Lens (HL-C) and the Telephoto Lens (HT-25) attached to my Canon EOS 5D MKII. My advice for shooting portraits with Holga lenses, don’t take photographs in front of a white wall, you’ll get the best results with a midtone grey wall!
The effective aperture of the lens is f/8 and focal length roughly equivalent to 60mm. Focusing is achieved through the regular Holga Zone Focus method. While shooting those portraits I have switched to the screen view of the camera in order to control the focus. Focusing through the viewfinder is a little bit tricky, but it works as well.
Portrait 3 - Tom Glagow, owner of C.A.R.E. Music Group - Portrait by Peter Nitsch.
What you see isn’t what you get! You’ll get strange effects. Light Leaks, Vignetting, Blur. These effects are usually ‘desired’ by the more creative Holga photographer. Amazingly digital photographers today are now spending amazing amounts of time and effort recreating these regular straight-out-the-camera Holga type effects in sophisticated software packages!
Probably the most important reason that Holga’s and their lenses have attained their cult status today is because they are Fun! Once your technical limitations have been simplified to a couple of very simple choices then you can just attach the Holga lenses, get out there and have some Fun!
If you’re looking for an affordable way to put some Holga-ness to your photography and your DSLR I highly recommend to give the Digital Holga Ultimate Kit a try!
The Digital Holga Ultimate Kit contains the following:
Standard Lens (HL-C) Specifications
• Effective Focal Length: 60mm (120 Medium Format – apply crop ratio as per your SLR)
• Aperture: Fixed f/8
• Focus: Manual Zone Focus
• Lens Type: Plastic
• Dimensions: 38x57mm
• Weight: 38g
Telephoto Lens (HT-25) Specifications (has to be added to the front of the HL-C)
• Resulting Lens Angle 46 degrees (120 Medium Format) OR 34 degrees (135 Regular Format)
• Magnification: 2.5x
• Dimensions: 39x57mm
• Weight: 36g
Wide Angle Lens (HW-05) Specifications (has to be added to the front of the HL-C)
• Resulting Lens Angle 93 degrees (120 Medium Format) OR 70 degrees (135 Regular Format)
• Magnification: 0.5x
• Dimensions: 38x57mm
• Weight: 38g
Close-Up Lens Set (CLS-1) Specifications (has to be added to the front of the HL-C)
• Set Contains CL-120 (120mm focal length), CL-250 (250mm focal length) and CL-500 (500mm focal length)
• Accessories: 1 protective bag
Macro Lens Set (MLS-1) Specifications (has to be added to the front of the HL-C)
• Set Contains ML-30 (30mm focal length) and ML-60 (60mm focal length)
• Accessories: 1 protective bag ❚
Portrait 4 - Tom Glagow, owner of C.A.R.E. Music Group - Portrait by Peter Nitsch.
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I would like to try an out of the camera dreamy look! What would be approximately~ the working distance in the samples above, which by the way are awesome! Thank you much!
Juanita, it was about 1.5m working distance. After shooting the images I increased the contrast in Photoshop (the edges of the photo will turn black) and tweaked the colors a little bit into green. If you want to have those scratches in the picture, just experiment a little bit with some lens add-ons (vaseline, threads and so on …). Have fun.