First Holga Pictures

The first roll of film shot with the new Holga was uploaded to The Dark Room’s web site last night and I am impressed. Even though I applied minimal tape and that only to cover the film number window and to make sure the back didn’t fall off there were no noticeable light leaks and the quality of the pictures was surprisingly good.

The “soft” focus and dreamy look associated with plastic lenses was there of course, along with the trademark color shift and vignette effect at the corners. There is definitely some undefinable characteristic about the unique “look” of the pictures that just seems to charm the viewer into overlooking the imperfection and just accepting the pictures for what they are – Holga!

Here is the Holga shot I promised you in a previous post.

…and here is the same scene shot using the 35mm Vivitar with the 50mm f1.7 lens.

Notice the difference the square format versus rectangular format makes in the overall look. I definitely like the Holga but I have to learn to get closer to my subject and get used to composing the shot with a square format instead of the rectangle format I have been shooting for most of my life. Of course, you can’t get too close or else the subject will end up in the “blurry” areas around the edges of the lens.

Both shots were were made using Kodak Portra 400 and processed by The Dark Room.

More to come – I guarantee!