how the holga sees

It is June, a start of another month. Last year I went on a camera buying spree. I was able to acquire second hand cameras, a Leica M6, Hasselbad 500C, Rolleiflex, Canonet QL-17 and the brand new Holga. It was relatively easy to figure out most of these cameras with the exception of the Holga. My first roll of film came back blocked out that it was useless. I could not figure the right exposure. When I finally was getting decent exposures with the camera, the picture is coming out not as I wanted it to be. So a few weekends ago, I tried figuring out a test for a camera that has a fixed f stop and shutter speed.

To do an exposure test, I placed the Holga on a tripod (yes the one I got from Hong Kong already has a tripod screw mount, no need for modifications!) Since it is of one exposure, (f/8) then I metered the wall accordingly using the rated speed of the film, in this case Kodak 125PX. That morning I was getting a reading of f/4 at 1/125 sec, the closest to 1/100 sec supposed shutter speed of the Holga. Working on this assumption, I should click the shutter 4 times to reach the equivalent exposure of and f/8 at 1/125 sec. I then did the next two frames at the equivalent of one higher EI and one lower EI. The negatives look promising but I still did not get to do a contact print to judge which was the best EI to use. I will find out the answer this weekend.

The second part of the test was to figure out how the Holga sees. I positioned the camera with the corners of the square covers the Holga's viewfinder totally. The picture at the top of this blog entry shows the result of how the Holga sees up close. It shows that there are a lot of extra space to the right side and the bottom that I did not see when I was looking at the view finder. I suspected this was the case because earlier when I took a picture of the new Ferris Wheel in Suan Lum, I covered the view finder with the entire wheel. Yet when the negatives came back, there was a lot of space available again to the right and to the bottom. This will be useful in figuring out how to compose the photograph.

I am slowly figuring out this plastic camera. I decided that in order that I can enjoy my cameras, I will have to spend 2 months with each of them at a time concentrating on each of them, learning how to use them. I am now learning more about my Holga and finally am starting to figure it out. So this June and July, I will post the pictures that I manage to come up with this fantastic plastic camera. I am sure I will be having fun along the way!

© 2006 daddywasabi