Another one from last winter from a roll that I developed last week.
If you frequent Flickr.com there is no doubt you will have heard of Lomokev, aka Kevin Meredith.
It was one of his photographs that convinced me to buy a LOMO LC-A a few years ago. (That photo of Imogen Heap on a bicycle that was on the login page of Flickr for years.)
This month, Lomokev publishes a book called “Hot Shots”. Check out the preview below.
The book won’t be available in the US until March 2009 but Amazon Canada have a October 1st release date so if you can’t wait until next year you can order it from across the border.
If you have never heard of Lomokev check out his Flickr photo stream.
Posted on Lightleaks Magazine’s website, there is a a PDF version of the interview with Mr Lee, the inventor of the Holga. It is worth a read.
Found a roll of Tmax400 120 film during the week. Here are a few photos from it that were taken last winter in Lake Tahoe.
History
In 1982, Mr T.M. Lee, founder of Universal Electronics Ltd in Hong Kong, wanted to release a medium format camera to supplement the companies flash products which were increasingly facing competition from cameras with built in flash made by competitors. The original target market was Mainland China so to be affordable, the camera had to be made cheaply and be fairly reliable. The result was the Holga.
In the 1990s, the Holga saw a huge increase in popularity. First of all, art schools and photography classes started to use Holgas to teach the basics of photography. Also, camera retailer, Lomographic Society International (LSI) started to market the camera as part of their Lomography movement.
In addition to that, the toy camera movement was gaining momentum and the Holga quickly became one of the mainstays in that genre of photography.
Specifications
The Holga is essentially a plastic box with a plastic lens. It uses medium format (120) film and there is minimal control over exposure and focus. The lens is a simple meniscus lens with a focal length of 60mm. Focusing is achieved by turning the lens barrel. Distances are judged using symbols which represent 4 different distances from 4 feet to infinity.
Shutter speed is listed as 1/125 and there is a switch which allows you to do bulb exposures. The “specifications” for the Holga also state that the apertures are f/8 and f/11 but due to a design flaw, many Holgas have only 1 usable aperture which may really be f/13 depending on who you talk to. It is possible to modify the camera to get two working apertures and the camera in the photo above has been modified to have actual apertures of f/8 and f/11.
Image size is determined by a mask inside the camera. The interchangeable masks come in the 6×6cm square or 645 (6×4.5cm) portrait style formats. When 6×6 is used, a roll of film will yield 12 photographs. When the 645 mask is used, there will be 16 images on the film. The camera can also be used without any mask which results in an approximately 6×6 square image extending beyond the intended image area. Some mechanical vignetting may also occur when the mask is not used.
Holga Models
There are many variations of the Holga 120. The 120S (now obsolete) and 120N are the most basic but do have a hot shoe to attach an external flash. The 120FN is a built in flash version and the 120CFN is the color flash version that allows the photographer to use the flash with 1 of 4 colored filters. All of the recent models come in a glass lens version and those have a “G” in the name (e.g. 120GFN). There also exists a variant called the WOCA. This is no longer made and has been replaced by the 120G series.
The Images
Because the lens is a simple plastic lens, the resulting photographs are not tack sharp and have a slight blur to the them. Many times that blur becomes more pronounced towards the edges of the images and, depending on the lighting conditions, there may be some vignetting.
Some Holgas will have light leaks. Some users like the leaks but for those who don’t they can be minimized by spray painting the inside of the camera matte black and taping up the seams of the camera.
Because the film transport is decoupled from the shutter, it is possible to easily take multiple exposures (sometimes unintentionally).
Modifications
The good thing about the Holga is that it can be modified with only a small amount of effort. It is possible to convert the camera to take 35mm film or the lens can be completely removed and replaced with a pinhole.
Where To Get A Holga
Sometimes, local independent camera stores will sell Holgas especially if there is a college or school nearby that uses them in their photography courses. But the easiest place to get one is online either in one of the main online camera stores or on eBay (sellers in Hong Kong sell new Holgas on eBay).
Lomographic Society International also sell Holgas normally as part of Lomographic packages. The packages typically come with extras but many times the don’t warrant the increase in price that LSI sells at. LSI also distribute cameras through “trendy” clothing and accessory stores such as Urban Outfitters in the US.
Holgamods.com sells modified cameras and is worth checking out.
My Opinion
The Holga is a great camera from anyone wanting to get into cheap plastic toy cameras. In today’s world, this camera is a vast and welcome contrast to mega pixel’d digital cameras with auto-everything. I like the softness of the images and the atmosphere of the photographs. The camera itself is easy to use and is fairly robust. If it does break, you can probably glue it back together or buy a brand new one for less than $30.
If you are going to shoot 120 film it is a good idea to make sure it is going to be easy for you to develop. Black & white film is easy to process at home and if you have a scanner you don’t even need a dark room. For color, you will probably have to drop it off at a lab. Some consumer labs don’t develop 120 so check before hand.
All in all, I recommend the Holga 120 so go check it out
Links
My Holga photos on Flickr.com
Squrefrog - lots of Holga information
Wikipedia
Camerapedia
Lomographic Society International
This one was taken a year ago in San Fransisco. The photo is one of an old street car. Streetcar #1063 to be exact. It originally served Philadelphia from 1948 to 1992 before moving to San Francisco to run on the Historic F-Line.
Streetcar #1063 is actually currently painted in the color scheme of Baltimore streetcars.
More from streetcar.org.
Do you edit your images or do you leave them as pure as they came out the camera?
Questions like this appear on film discussions group on Internet photography sites like Flickr from time to time and there is always a subset of people who respond with statements like “I don’t edit my images , I like them to be natural” or “I don’t edit. Its film, doesn’t quite seem right.”
In my opinion such “nouveau analogue purists” are naive and misguided. I don’t know if such people are recent converts from digital or have never been in a dark room but it is very apparent they don’t realize what goes into turning a negative into a photograph.
With negative film, if you don’t edit your negative, then all you have is a negative. When scanned, then there is a good chance that these photographers are posting images online that have already been edited in the scanner software/firmware. This is especially likely when the scanning is done at a commercial processing lab. Of course, it is possible to turn off all auto correction (or ask the lab for no correction) but not doing any processing is selling yourself short. You are not realizing the full potential of the negative.
When I talk about editing here, I am talking about dodge/burn/contrast - the same things you would control by time, enlarger aperture and selective exposure in a dark room.
Some examples:-
Exposure/Contrast
Darkroom Way: make exposure based on time and adjust contrast via paper choice or filters in the enlarger.
Photoshop Way: Adjust exposure and contrast via the Levels control.
Dodge/Burn
Darkroom Way: use hands, arms, bits of corn flakes boxes to hide or expose areas of the print during printing.
Photoshop Way: use a 50% grey fill layer, overlay mode and the brush to dodge or burn as required.
Yes the tools have changed, but the process is similar and the resulting image is better than doing nothing to the negative.
Now, it is everybody’s prerogative to post what they like. But the negative contains a lot of information. It is shame to see so many flat and dull photographs on the Internet that could have easily been made into something decent if only those nouveau analogue purists knew a little more about the process of making a photograph.
Browsing the web recently, I came across a post on the web that said “I wanted to take photos from my 20D and give them the Lomo look and feel“. It then went on to describe a method in Photoshop on how to achieve the “the Lomo look and feel“.
Over the past few years I have read many such posts and seen many forum discussions taking about the “Lomo look” and how to get it without using an actual LOMO camera.
This got me thinking. Not about how to fake the look but what exactly is the “Lomo look”?
First of all, for those of you that don’t know, LOMO is an optical company based in Russia. LOMO designs and manufactures optical instruments such as microscopes, night vision devices and telescopes. They also used to produce cameras but about 4 or 5 years ago, they stopped doing this. The most famous camera they made is the LOMO LC-A.
Many times, when people buy LC-As or the Chinese replica they are disappointed when the first roll comes back from the lab. Some examples from Flickr.com:-
“I just got my first two rolls developed … and there doesn’t appear to be any sign of vignettes”
“…none of the special quirks linked with shots from the lomo, just looked like any other shots”
I have to admit when I got my first roll back I too was a little disappointed. Where were all those wild colors I saw on Flickr and on camera retailer, Lomographic Society International’s website? My shots were all kind of normal looking. What was I doing wrong?
The problem here is that there is a misconception that the saturated, contrasty look is a result of the Lomo camera itself. Turns out that is not really the case. Here are a few more photos to illustrate that. These were all taken with a LOMO LC-A. Do they have the “Lomo look”?
If you were to ask someone, which of these is the “Lomo look” I think most people would say the last one. The first was taken using black and white film, the second is plain old regular negative film. But the last photograph is slide film cross processed as negative film.
It is this cross processing that I feel most people associate with the “Lomo look”. Now, there is a noticeable vignette on all these photos and this definitely is also part of the look but the cross processing increases the contrast which in turn accentuates the vignette so both effects are related.
Here is another photo I have taken which I think has some of the attributes that people class as “Lomo”.
But this wasn’t taken with a LOMO at all. It was taken with an Olympus XA2 and cross processed. So is the “Lomo look” also the “XA2″ look?
So my conclusion is this: The “Lomo look” has less to do with the camera than it does how you process your film. Cross process slide film in negative film chemistry and you will be closer to getting that famous “Lomo look”.
Yesterday I loaded up my new Olympus 35 RC (see the previous post) with some Fuji Acros 100 and went for a walk around the neighborhood. (Actually I went to get milk at the supermarket but I took my camera with me.)
Last night, I developed the film (Rodinal 1+50, 11.5 mins) and here are some of the results.
Overall, I am happy with the camera. It exposed pretty well and the lens was pretty sharp (hard to see that in these low resolution shots). It also worked well in “Flashmatic” mode when I attached my cheap Achiever electronic flash to it.
I do wish I bought an ND filter at the photo fair yesterday though. The thread is 43.5mm which may be difficult to find and with an f/2.8 lens, shooting film such as Tri-X on sunny California days may turn out to be problematic.
While walking around, I felt the camera would be an effective street photography camera. It is smaller than my Voigtländer Bessa R4A and the shutter is definitely quieter.
All in all, I have to say I am happy with my purchase.
I visited the San Jose Photo Fair for the first time today. I picked up this Olympus 35 RC rangefinder, two packs of expired Polaroid film and a lens cap (to fit the Olympus). If only I had a few thousand dollars in spare cash with me. Then I would have walked away with loads of Leicas and other expensive collectibles.
The 35 RC is from 1970 and has a fixed 42mm E. Zuiko f/2.8 lens. It has a Automatic Exposure mode which is shutter priority as well as full manual mode. There is a CdS light cell for metering but this only works in auto mode. So when shooting in manual mode, you need an alternative means of metering.
I have just loaded it with some Fuji Acros 100 so will take it for a test drive later today.
