cerealjoe | Entries tagged with gali loves the holga lenses

Holga, holga, holga, holga! Holga!

Speaking of the Holga lenses, as they're based on one primary lens that's pretty much a pinhole lens, low-light photos come out shitty, even without a secondary wideandle or fisheye lens. As you can imagine, grey days and those lenses are not buddies right now.

My favourite photo from that first Holga-lens outing. There is just something rather eerie about it.

The shot below is what made me think, "this is so cool but these shots are photos that only a mother could love." Because really, the number of things that are wrong with the photo is astounding but the moment I saw it on my screen, I knew it was going to be one of my favourites.

Shooting with the macro and close-up lenses is kind of fun because they all come with their focal distance indicated on them and it's always a game of, "right, well how far is the object I'm trying to shoot... I'd say 15cm. Okie, now which pouch did I put that lens in?" It's a constant game, in a way.

(and all these Holga-lens photos can be found in a bigger format here)

So... I got a new toy. A toy made of quite a few parts. A Holga kit lens that can be used on Olympus PEN cameras. Digital meets pure plastic and it gives quite lovely results.

I honestly think they're lovely but, once again, I have a feeling it has something to do with the fact that some of the shots really do look like only a mother could love them. And I do love them. I actually love the fact that taking photos with these lenses is nothing like taking photos with my usual lenses. Focusing on anything a nightmare and, yet, somehow I adore that.

I got the Kitchen sink kit so it has one main lens that fit on the camera and then tons of add-on lenses that fit on top of that one (fisheye, wide angle, tele, 3 close-ups, and 2 macro). It's been quite something trying to figure out how each one works! But hey, at least here I can kind of see if my shot is totally out of focus before taking a photo, it's not quite possible with a regular Holga - although, in the end, I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. The not knowing if a shot came out till after you develop the film, that is. There is a certain appeal to it. That's why toy cameras are quite popular, I suppose.