Film-Camera Reviews

First of all, this camera is intended to be fun, but can also be interesting. The camera is plastic. It is often full of light leaks that create odd irregularities in the photos. The lens is a cheap plastic that can cause distortions, generally fairly mild, in the photographs.

BUT, it uses medium format (120) film, and the fact that the negative is four times the size means that if you are careful you may find you get a photograph out of this camera better than the one that comes out of your 10 times the price 35 mm camera. To do so, you need to tape up the sides to minimize light leaks. Use black electrical tape.

Also realize that letting the light shine through can create some interesting pictures, and so try some without the tape, or with less tape. Also remove the square bracket inside that focuses the light on a neat rectangle, and instead you'll get vignetted photos that fade off on the sides.

Consider the cheaper model as well, the one that doesn't have the flash. The flash is difficult to use, and the batteries regularly fall out or come loose (go into a dark room to fix them!). I tape batteries in when I need to, and just don't use them when I'm outdoors.

Whatever you do, have fun, and do a search of "Holga" on the web -- you'll find a variety of websites devoted to this little babies.

Ok, this is not your basic point-and shoot, in fact the camera as it is shipped barely works at all- you'll have light leaks, the back will fly off, it shoots in a rectangular rather than square format, blah, blah. But, if you want to really break out of conventional photography and have some fun, this is the way to go.

Do some searching around on the Internet about how to modify one of these babies, though. Mine has no light leaks, can be used in a "bulb" mode, and shoots square format, as a holga should if you want to see the kind of edge distortion and vignetting holgas are famous for. I can also run cheap 35mm through it, for an interesting effect. Email me for more info on how I made my modifications, I'm happy to help.

Also, for relatively inexpensive mail-away 120 processing (both color and BW), Vermont Color is the way to go- look them up.

I love my Holga (been shooting about 3-6 rolls a year). It is the lowest priced medium format camera short of building your own out of plywood. Be cautious removing the film, do it in low light (it tends to unspool slightly, and it's easy to burn the edge of the undeveloped film). I tape all the seems on mine after I load it, helps avoid light leaks, and it is easy. Both black and white as well as color photos can come out well, and medium format gives you the option to blow up pictures to very large sizes (the negative is quite large compared to 35 mm, or APS formats. So, if you want to experiment a little, and you want to shoot some 120 film without spending 350 on a SeaGull, or 1,000+ for a Pentax645 Then a Holga for under 20 or 30 bucks is perfect. I've had mine now for about 4 years.