I came across some postings on a blog about this cheap ($25,00) camera from China. It quality is so bad it's funny. But what I did see were spectacular images. Very dreamy , vignette,blurred. They were pieces of artwork.

It's almost what you get with Lensbaie

Love to hear from anyone?

I have one. I've only shot one roll of film with it and apparently I didn't get one of the magic ones that produce totally nifty images, because what I ended up with was a thirty-five dollar processing fee for a bunch of shots that look like something from the photo albums of the sixties.

If that's what you want, there's nothing wrong with that, but I suspect that a lot of those ultracool Holga images we see are the result of people who are gifted photographers *anyway* playing to the camera's strengths.

M

I never bought one but I understood that there is a "sweet" spot for the focus distance that produces nice images. They have a fixed aperture of F8 I believe. I've been thinking about trying one.

I have 4 of them. Used one a bunch and bought 3 more for a wedding a while ago. The apertures are f8 "cloudy" and f11 "sunny". It has one shutter speed.

www.freestylephoto.biz/pdf/HolgaManual2.pdf

Great camera, I use 3200 speed film in it. Most of them leak light like crazy so tape it up. It's the kind of camera where you can get "happy mistakes". Got a cool double exposure of Gwen Stefani in concert without trying to.

Can you use studio strobes with it? I would love to play in the studio. Or am I better off using modeling lights from the strobe?

Im getting excited thinking about this camera.

As a funny note can you see a line listing on an invoice?

Fee
Film and processing
props
5- holgas

Just being silly.........

http://www.toycamera.com/

Bear in mind that no two will be the same in any sense - exposure, focus, light leaks. The first roll or two consider as exposure test (chromes work best) then you can start to match film speed to light conditions and use gel filters; or point, shoot, & hope for the happy accident.

I have a few Diana F's for studio work.

Yes, you can use strobes with it. It has a hotshoe for the occasion.

I guess I need a hot shoe adapter to sync it. I just put a bid on one on ebay.

Thank you everyone for the info.

Take a look at a friend of mine's website

http://www.sunshineandnoir.com/

all with a holga.

I bought a cheapy toy camera lens that is glued onto a body cap to give the same sort of crappy look with digital. It's not the same but it's fun.

Thanks Mike for your friends site. Great work. Just to think a crappy camera allowed creativity and inspiration to the work.

People have also adapted holga lenses to fit on their digital bodies. Google "digital holga" without the quotes.

Mike those are awesome. Now that's what film is good for, haha!

Cool! A toy camera thread on the PDN forum!

I use a modified Kodak Brownie Hawkeye that gives me that sweet spot similar to the Holga. I picked mine up a few years back for a buck at a garage sale from a gentleman who had retired from Kodak in Toronto. The Hawkeye has a spring shutter and plastic lens f14 @ 1/35. Using my Hawkeye forces me to relinquish technical control to the camera and use film which for me is a nice change of pace. I just placed third in the Px3, Prix de la Photographie Paris (www.px3.fr) for my series titled �Airshow�, shot with my trusty old Brownie Hawkeye.

There�s a popular website dedicated to the plastic camera - toycamera.com. Lots of Holga info and some beautiful work.

Cheers!
Steven A. Smith
www.vistagraphos.com

quote:

Originally posted by manphoto:
[qb] I guess I need a hot shoe adapter to sync it. I just put a bid on one on ebay.

Thank you everyone for the info. [/qb]

You can also just put one of those wizard remotes on the hot shoe.