Digital Holga?

The Yashica EZ F521

Digital Holga – really? No, not really, but to be fair to the company that bought the Yashica name, they never claimed it was. It's just a cheap 5MP digital compact with a plastic lens (hence the Holga comparison by some). It has some fun built in digital filters that can be applied before or after shooting – in camera. You can even stack several on top of each other. It has a strangely powerful flash and video capability.

Flashlit Graffiti

Another neat trick it does is bend images. There is no shutter, the camera scans the sensor from top to bottom, if you move the camera horizontally while taking a shot, it gets confused and bends vertical objects.

Bendyness

 

 

Colour filters

Like a Holga there is only simply focussing ability (normal or macro) but there is some exposure control, you can apply flash and exposure compensation settings through the menu options. One thing it does that real Holga photographers can only dream of, it can see what you about to take. It has a Holga like useless viewfinder or an LCD screen to where you can actually preview the image!  

Some owners have inserted a washer behind the lens to give Holga like vignette. I don’t see the point as I can easily add this in photo-editing software if I want to. But I suppose that if you don’t have the software it’s an interesting mod.

Strange red colour cast

B&W filter

Some digital vignette

If you want a digital camera that gives Holga images, sorry, you’ll have to wait. But if you want a fun featured – take anywhere – cheap digital, the Yashica is worth a punt.

Glorious Technicolour (Well kodak 400VC colour)

For the second roll of film through my new Holga GTLR I chose some Kodak 400VC. The Holgarama banner at the head of my blogs was shot with the end of this roll. I didn't see the cars on the left in the viewfinder - this demonstrates how difficult it can be framing shots on the Holga when you don't get to see exactly what the lens sees!

I started shooting it where my last blog was shot, at St Fagans Welsh folk museum, the last building I came to was a particularly colourful farm house that I thought would suit the Kodak film. All the buildings in the St Fagans museum have been brought brick by brick, from other parts of Wales and give an interesting insight into what life was like in Wales for previous generations.

I also chose this roll to investigate some double exposures. Some worked, some didn't. I think it is best to shoot the first exposure with few highlights, saving the second exposure for brighter areas like sky.













Next I tried some topiary - again framing wasn't quite right.



On this roll I also shot my first bulb exposure, trying to capture the movement in the water. I placed the camera on a rock and counted "one-one thousand".

For my next outing I will be trying this used 120N I picked up off EBAY. Also trying out the home-made Holga Splitzer I made from a Holga Lenscap.

The Holga bug bites

After ten years shooting just with a digital camera, getting obsessed with pixels, sharpness, detail, dynamic range, post processing, etc, I suddenly had a thought :- 

"why don't I get a cheap plastic Chinese 120 film camera
with a dodgy lens, prone to light leaks, distortion and vignetting?"

- The Holga bug bites!

These first images are poor quality scans of prints (I don't have a photo scanner) but then Holga images are fairy lo-fi to start with, so it's no problem.

These images are taken at the Welsh folk museum at St Fagans, just outside Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. The camera was a Holga GTLR loaded with Ilford HP5 film.

I really enjoyed not knowing what the camera was producing , years of digital shooting made me forget the excitement of waiting for the film to come back from the developers. The lack of exposure controls on the camera was a bit disconcerting, but the freedom of just pointing and shooting made photography fun in a new way.

Don't get me wrong, I still like digital. I'm glad I live at a time when we can shoot in both digital AND film - I don't see the point of the film/digital wars that flame on some forums?

But now the Holga bug has bitten me I must try some colour film . . . oh and a splitzer . . . what about infrared? . . . maybe the wide angle attachment . . . 35mm panoramic film with sprockets . . . double exposures . . . Holga montages. . . light leaks . . . a plastic lens Holga. I think I'm going to enjoy this.