The Holga Experiment I

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After 5 days away I am finally back and “doing stuff.” Sadly, today, my “doing stuff” did not involved time on the bike. Instead it involved running shoes and 4.5 miles on the treadmill squeezed in between a variety of duties that were about as fun a lancing a boil with a dull knitting needle. BUT, in that hodgepodge of boil lancing I was able to drop off and pick up the first roll of film in my winter 2014/15 Holga experiment; it was a sub par success.

The Holga is a cheap Chinese plastic film camera that has developed a cult following over the past 25 years or so and is known for its light leaks, blurred edges, easy double exposures and roll of the dice results as illustrated on today’s post. In other words, don’t expect much except to have a bit of fun. I haven’t used a film camera in a bout 14 years but was in the mood to try something new. I have always been a fan of lomography and of so many of the photos that I have seen taken by  Holga and the Lomo cameras. So I figured what the hell and took the plunge on a $36 Holga 135. I went with the 135 because it takes 35 mm film, which can be bought and developed almost anywhere.

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While there isn’t THAT much that one has to know about shooting with a camera as simple as the Holga, there is still a bit of a learning curve. For example I went with a 400 ISO (Kodak Porta). It seems that the amount of light the Holga lets in, combined with an extremely sunny day and high ISO film completely washed out quite a few of the pics. On top of that, I can’t say that Walgreens is the greatest in their handling of the film and while some of the prints came out, many of the scans on the disc they gave me were SUPER grainy and unusable. I would have been better off scanning them myself rather than paying or a disc. Oh well, lessons learned. Going to shoot 200 ISO in the next experiment and try someplace different for the processing.

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Of course, it seems there are fewer places that are going to be doing 35 mm developing, in fact, I was in Meijer the other day and talked to them and they said that as of January 1, they will no longer be processing film. They will be sending it out and it will take two to three weeks to receive your prints, as well as costing more.

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I was pleased with a few of the photos but disappointed that so many were nothing more than washed out gray. Oh well, it was fun to geek around and I am sure I will be doing more of it as the winter progresses.

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For now the snow is gone, but the cold is here. I am hopeful to get out a few times this week and roll some dirt roads. That is ALWAYS more fun that strapping on running shoes.

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Look! It’s Jake (the dog) Holga-fied…

Later.

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