First Holga Shots

I purchased a Holga two weeks ago. I've always been intrigued with the outcome of images folks post on the web. Knowing it was a $30 plastic fun toy I couldn't resist the temptation. Even if the outcome was horrible it was a mere drop in the bucket of pennies to find out for myself.

The Holga was produced in China in the early 1980's. The Chinese government were becoming a bit more relaxed towards the arts and the population was falling in love with the art of photography too. The Holga was mass produced as cheaply as possible to sell to the masses. Entirely made out of plastic people were able to capture their important moments with mixed results. You have to be an adventurous spirit to enjoy this camera.

There are three anomalies that occur regularly with Holga cameras. The first is vignetting, the second is flares and the third is light leaks streaks. There are ways to avoid the light leaks. Electrician tape covering over every possible seam of the camera (including around the lens casing) sometimes does the trick. The other way is painting the inside of the camera black.

As you can see with these two images from my first attempts my lens has a way of vignetting results on the images. To learn more about Holga there is plenty on the Wikipedia page.

I look forward to trying on my second roll of film which is black and white. I love surprises and that's a good thing.