The Holga Experience - Tips and Tricks I've Learned

<Note: I wrote this before the current COVID-19 pandemic became what it is today. I wrestled with posting it now. But then I figured that folks may want to read about something other than the virus, so I’ve made the decision go to ahead and post it. Enjoy! I hope you and your family are being safe.>

“I shoot with a Holga.”

The very phrase used to make me think of some bad photography. I mean really bad. Hipsters-in-skinny-jeans-at-an-Avett-Brothers-concert bad. People-taking-images-with-crooked-horizons bad.

A quick google search of “Holga images” would bring endless shots of out-of-focus, incorrectly exposed, blurry images with light leaks and un-interesting subjects. I mean it’s a $30 plastic medium format film camera with 1 shutter speed and two f/stops. With a plastic lens. And that’s it. Why even bother? #elitist

Michael Kenna’s Holga book. Available on Amazon.

Well, let’s be honest here. You can take bad pictures with any camera. It doesn’t matter how much money you spend – if you don’t know what you are doing, the camera isn’t going to get it right on its own. So my tongue-in-cheek elitist comments above aren’t exactly fair.

The Holga work of Michael Kenna is proof that a good artist CAN make art with any camera. If you haven’t seen his Holga images I suggest you check them out. Many can be found here:

https://www.michaelkenna.com/imagearchive.php

So that all being said, I’ve been shooting with Holgas lately and have been enjoying the experience. For those interested in trying it out I have some thoughts, tips, and tricks.

First, a little history on Holga cameras. “Holga” comes from the Mandarin “ho gwong” meaning “very bright”. The origins of Holga began in 1981 during a time when 120 “medium format” film was very popular in China. It was created as a low-cost way of working families to take pictures of trips, places, loved ones, etc. Unfortunately at that time the popularity of 35mm film was on its meteoric rise, and in no time completely eclipsed the popularity of 120 film for the “every man” in China. Thankfully for the Holga, the West was clamoring at the time for a fun, “artsy” camera and it really caught on. By the time 2001 rolled around over 1 million Holgas had been sold all over the world. Their sales continue strong today, even after the original factory closed five years ago, and then a new factory picked up the molds and started making them again.

The Holga is probably the lightest, most simple medium format film camera out there. Put a strap on it and throw it around your neck and you might forget its there. There are many different Holgas that have been produced over the years, but the most popular one, and the one that I will be going into details here about, is the Holga 120N.

The 120N is the evolved version of the original Holga 120. The 120N has an un-coupled viewfinder that approximates the scene. It has 2 shutter speeds – 1/100th of a second, and “bulb”. Note that in bulb mode you have to hold the lever down to keep the shutter open. It has two f/stops – “sunny” which is f/11 and “cloudy” which is f/8. Given the un-coupled viewfinder, focusing is done by estimating the distance to your subject. There are 4 icons on the lens that you use for this. The 1-person icon is 3 feet, the family icon is 6 feet, the group icon is 18 feet, and the mountain icon is 30-feet to infinity. I’ve checked these distances by putting a piece of ground glass in the back of one of mine and measuring distances to subject and its fairly close. Know that every Holga is different due to (lack-of) tolerances so yours may vary slightly. I own two Holgas so the second one may not be exactly the same but I haven’t noticed it in the images. The last “feature” on the 120N is a tripod mount. Using this with bulb mode is where you can really optimize your image quality. More on this in a bit.

My Holga 120N with cable release accessory

So right away you’ll ask – how do I get properly exposed images with effectively 1 shutter speed and 2 different f/stops while I’m walking around with the Holga? The general recommendation is to shoot with 400 speed color film. The reason for this is that color film has a lot of latitude and can handle being over-exposed by quite a bit, and under-exposed by a stop or two. If you shoot with Kodak Portra film, for example, it can easily handle being over-exposed by 5-6 stops and still look good. So on a partly cloudy to sunny day, effectively treat the camera like a point and shoot and just fire away.

Below are some tricks and tips if you want to get the most out of your Holga. Some of these I’ve learned the hard way, so I’ve made the mistakes for you already.

1. Get that film tight. When loading the Holga, you need to avoid the dreaded “fat roll”. Fat rolls are when you finish shooting, open up the back of the camera, and find that the take-up roll isn’t wound nice and tight and light leaks into the last 3 or 4 shots on the roll. The way to avoid this is to put a little tension on the roll when loading it by putting your thumb on it while winding the take-up spool until you see the arrow. This tip will make more sense to you when you are loading the camera.

2. Gaffer tape is your friend. Holgas have light leaks, and the backs often fall off. Some consider this to be part of the “charm”, but I don’t. Part of the problem is the design – the metal clips that hold the back on also double as mounts for a strap, and they aren’t very snug. It doesn’t take much to bump them open and at the very least let light in, or the worst, let the back fall off and expose all of your work. I don’t mean go crazy with tape – just two pieces nicely placed around both of the clips, overlapping the front and back of the camera, do nicely. The black tape doesn’t stand out too bad against the black plastic. If you want a more elegant solution, www.holgamods.com sells a 3D-printed plastic piece that snaps over the clips and holds them tight, while also give you a place to put your film indicator square so that you know what film is loaded. I have this on one of my Holgas and its GREAT. (I still use tape in addition to this – you can never be too careful)

I’m not messing around! Clip from hogamods.com AND gaffers tape. No light leaks here. No way.

3. Take off your glasses. Looking through the viewfinder with your glasses or sunglasses on creates a problem – it puts your eye further away from the small window and distorts what you see. You need to get your eye right against the window to see the entire field of view when composing. If you leave your glasses on, you’ll find that when you develop your images your subject will appear further away and smaller in the frame than what you saw. Having your eye right against the window solves the problem and allows for proper composing.

Waterfall at George Rogers Clark Park. I wouldn’t have got this composition right if I didn’t take off my glasses and look at all of the edges in the viewfinder.

4. Use bulb mode. This is key to getting “good” landscape or cityscape images. Plus it allows you to use different film other than 400 speed color. Of course this means using a tripod. The good thing about the Holga is that it weighs nearly nothing, so you don’t need an expensive tripod – just about any will do. To hold the shutter down, you need to do it by hand, or rig up a rubber band and s-hook to keep tension on it to keep it open. A more elegant solution is available from www.holgamods.com – they 3D-print an attachment that goes over the lens that has a threaded section for a cable release. I have one of these and it is a BIG improvement over trying to hold the shutter open any other way.

ND filter accessory for Holgas from eBay

5. ND Filters. Using an ND filter helps get the shutter speed down to a few seconds, so that you can use bulb mode, even on a sunny day. But wait, you say, there’s no threads on a Holga lens to attach one. Yes, that’s correct. In the past I’ve been able to just simply hold one of my 77mm threaded filters over the front of the lens and that’s worked fairly well. The actual lens opening on the Holga is very small, so there’s plenty of room for error here. Just keep it fairly close to the lens and ensure you keep your fingers out of the way. I recently found an attachment on eBay that’s essentially a small tube that slides over the lens that has threads on the end of it for 58mm filters. This has made life much easier. If interested do a secarch for “Holga filter” on eBay and it should be one of the first things that comes up.

This was shot in broad daylight with a shutter time of around 10 seconds - I held a 77mm ND4 filter in front of the lens.

6. Watch for flaring when shooting at night. If you are shooting at night and a street light or some other light source is causing you to see flaring in the viewfinder, you can bet that it will be just as bad or worse in your image. The viewfinder and lens are (I think) made out of the same exact plastic that does not like to have light shined directly at it. You can try to shield the light with a hat or something else, but ultimately you may need re-compose the scene. The flaring is interesting – it reminds me of that scene from nearly the end of Ghostbusters (the first one, the real one, the good one) where the spirits are moving thru the air. It may or may not be your thing – generally I don’t like it.

This is a good example of flaring from the street light.

7. Embrace the flaws. The lens is only “sharp” in the center. Sharp is a relative term here – it doesn’t hold up well when viewing your scan at 1:1 on your desktop, but that’s not how you should be viewing anyway. The edges of the frame are not sharp, and quite blurry. This can often add to an image by separating what you have “sharp” in the center from the rest of the scene, giving it depth. Also know that the vignetting gets much worse the closer you have to focus on something – meaning, that at infinity its not super prevalent, but at close focus of 3-6 feet, the lens has a lot of vignetting, to where it looks like you are shooting with a crop-body lens on a full-frame camera. Again this is something that is part of the Holga “charm”.

Hamilton, Ohio during the early morning Blue Hour. This exposure took several minutes. I moved so the light wasn’t casting a flare on the lens.

8. Have fun! Know that shooting a Holga is an experience that’s meant to be fun. Sometimes you get something you love, sometimes you get something that makes you scratch your head and say “What the hell happened?”. If you need to get something perfectly sharp and clinical, then bring your Hasselblad or RB67 with you.

Cypress Trees - here the tree in the foreground was about 4 feet from me - you can see the vignetting at the edges from focusing on something closer than infinity. Also note how part of the tree near the center is sharp and then it falls off rather … — Cypress Trees - here the tree in the foreground was about 4 feet from me - you can see the vignetting at the edges from focusing on something closer than infinity. Also note how part of the tree near the center is sharp and then it falls off rather quickly.

That’s it! I hope this helps a bit if you are thinking of shooting a Holga. I highly recommend picking one up – they are super cheap and don’t take much room in your bag. If using one for the first time, know that even with these tips it’s a bit of a learning curve. Don’t get discouraged and just enjoy yourself.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out!

Jeremy