Holga WPC

The latest addition to my arsenal of pinhole cameras is the formidable Holga WPC (wide pinhole camera). This camera comes with two masks, one for shooting in 6 x 12 format and the other for shooting in 6 x 9 format on 120 roll film. That translates into negatives that are 2 ¼” x 4 ½” or 2 ¼” x 3 3/8” respectively. Either of these are impressive for the size alone and could result in extreme enlargements of excellent quality.

In fact when shooting the in the near panoramic 6 x 12 format The Darkroom thinks it is so impressive they charge extra for processing. I believe this is justified because it takes extra time & effort to identify these non-standard negatives and scan them properly, something The Darkroom takes the time to do and do very well. 

With my Holga set up for the 6 x 12 format and a roll of Portra 400 loaded I set out on my photo safari to see what my new pinhole camera could do.  In my last post I displayed a photo of “the crossroads” taken with my Pentax K-1.  As you can see from the panoramic image above the Holga WPC’s version of that shot includes a “little” more of the crossroad.

The famous “dark corners” are in full splendor here, even after a little cropping to better present the image. I confess to not really liking the “dark corners” the way the WPC presents it and will probably crop most of my shots to soften the effect somewhat. Otherwise however, I really like the WPC and am impressed with the initial results of my first adventure with it.

Lessons learned – get closer! As with most pinholes you always seem to be too far away from the subject and the WPC is no different in that respect.

A few days after I shot these images I had planned another shoot but cancelled it once I realized that the Holga cable release I had did not have a reliable locking mechanism for use with the extremely long exposures (15 to 20 minutes) I was contemplating.  This is the one sold under the Holga brand name and works well with all my Holgas but like everything “Holga” it is mostly cheap plastic and rather flimsy. 

After a bit of experimenting it appears however, that a couple of strategically placed rubber bands might effectively hold the shutter open so that I can just use the lens cap as the shutter for such exposures. I will let you know how it works after my next Holga WPC adventure.