Let’s face it – 2020, as a year, has sucked.

I had such big plans for this year, and for the most part…………none of them have happened.

I haven’t written anything since April, and I don’t think I’ve posted to Instagram in the past 8 weeks. Finding motivation in these times is difficult, especially while many of us are just trying to get by, and deal with the daily onslaught of tragic news stories and unhinged tweets.

Since my last post our beloved cat, Cole, has passed, and on top of all of that, my wife lost her job due to downsizing thanks to COVID-19 and the shrinking economy. To be fair a lot of people are experiencing a great deal of tragedy at the moment – at least right now Renee and I have our health and are being careful and diligent. I am still hopeful that this too shall pass and brighter days are ahead.

Enough of the “woe is me” already – where are the pictures Jeremy? OK, I’m getting to that I promise!

I’ve still been carrying a camera with me whenever possible, and on rare occasions getting out to shoot in other locations than my back yard. Not that my back yard is bad, mind you. With insect season in full swing, I recently dusted off my macro gear after its year-long slumber, and captured images of some of the current residents in my yard.

I’ve also been giving my Holga(s) a good work out – who knew that a cheap plastic camera could be such fun?

Speaking of Holgas, I’ll admit that I’ve been experiencing a case of gear lust for quite a while now when it comes to the Holga 120 Pan. The Pan is an interesting beast, with the heart and lens of a Holga, but the ability to shoot a 12cm wide panoramic image. If you’ve been reading my blog you’ll notice a trend where I’ve been shooting a lot of panoramas – either with my big ($$$) Fuji GX617 or with my RB67 and 35mm adapters. But my love of Holgas has made me want to also do some lo-fi panos.

Unfortunately the Pan was only made for a year or two, and there aren’t many of them out there. My long-standing search on eBay was not yielding any results, and a constant eye on the Photrio classifieds was also not doing me any good. So I had pretty much given up on finding one.

Then one day I was reading some blogs by Dave Whenham (go check out his work!) and I ran across an entry from 2 years ago where he wrote about shooting his new-to-him Holga 120 Pan. Not seeing another post about it since, I took a chance on sending him a note asking if he was interested in selling. To my delight the camera was on its way to me in no time at all! Thanks Dave! Its interesting how when you’ve given up looking for something, you find it.

So first, a little bit about the Pan. In the image above I have it next to my Holga 120 Pinhole camera for a size comparison. It’s a BIG camera, but being nearly all plastic its not heavy. It has a 90mm plastic lens. Typical Holga build quality, but with a few nice touches. The built-in bubble level is nice; something that really helps when shooting a wide image and trying to keep everything from curving up at the edges or tilting one way. It has two hotshoes, because with such a wide image, it needs two flashes. There’s a central viewfinder that APPROXIMATES your field of view. More on that later. There are the same “Sunny” (@ f/11) and “Cloudy” (@ f/8) settings as my other Holgas, along with “Normal” (somewhere @ 1/100th to 1/125th) and Bulb. Check out my prior post on Holgas here to learn more about working with the limitations a plastic camera presents.

So last weekend I took the Holga 120 Pan to a local town named Troy, Ohio with Eric Wright to shoot some Blue Hour and Dawn images on my go-to cityscape/landscape film – Kodak Ektar 100. How did it do?

I think it did great! The experience is the same as shooting the Holga 120N, but that wide viewfinder is GLORIOUS! In the field it really reminds me of shooting my GX617 – nice wide field of view that really draws you in. Is it sharp edge-to-edge – nope. Not at all. But it is, as they say, “sharp enough”.

A few things regarding shooting the Pan.

First, the field of view you see through the viewfinder isn’t exactly what you get. From looking at the few rolls I shot I think that the viewfinder field of view is taller than what is actually captured on the film, and suffers a little bit from parallax, even shooting items far away. The takeaway – compose with extra room in your composition and be certain to have extra room at the top for certain.

Second, its not really a 6cm x 12cm image as advertised on Lomography’s website. The exposed negative is actually 5.2cm x 12cm. Instead of a 1 to 2 ratio its more like 1 to 2.3. No big deal there – I typically print at 1 to 2 or 1 to 3 for panoramas, so there’s a little extra room to crop.

Third, its sharper in the middle *I think* than my Holga 120N cameras. I’ll need to shoot more with it to get a better feel for this. I read that it has the same meniscus-type lens, but…maybe that’s incorrect?? Also, vignetting is not as bad as I would have imagined. There’s actually less vignetting with the Holga Pan than with the GX617 with the 90mm lens and no center-weighted ND filter. Sharpness does fall off greatly at the outer edges, and because of the width things at the edges are also a little distorted. Again, that’s OK and what one would expect. Right?

Not only is it fun to shoot horizontal panels, but turning it on its side can create some interesting images.

After spending the early morning in Troy, Eric and I headed to Piqua, a small town located just to the North. There I put a few rolls thru my Kowa Six medium format camera. More on that in the next blog.

So, if you can’t tell already, I really like this plastic camera. If I had some serious pano work to do that requires maximum sharpness and quality, I would still grab the GX617 or maybe the RB67 with the 135 pano adapters. But if I’m going out just to be creative or exploring an area, the Pan will probably be my camera of choice for shooting panos.

Yes, maybe it’s a case of G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome), but G.A.S. for a camera that costs less than you would spend on a good dinner out is not a bad disease. And hey, this was the first time in a long while that I was actually excited about creating, developing and scanning images.

Truth be told, if a bit of new gear gets you out there to shoot and experience the world again, so be it. Anything that can get you motivated, and keep you motivated, at this time - is truly a good thing. I think all of us can use a little bit of good right now. Even if you don’t have any new gear, dusting something off you haven’t used in a while, or trying a new technique you haven’t tried before can help with motivating you to get out there. Give it a try.

If you have any questions about the Holga 120 Pan, or anything else I’ve covered here, or just want to chat………..please drop me a line.

And be safe out there.

Jeremy