Just some more Digital Holga stuff. Neat lens but it is horribly slow. I am guessing even after I modded it is sitting at f/22ish (light meter battery is dead so I can’t confirm). Seriously in daylight (granted it was a typical grey vancouver day IE:dark) I was at ISO 2500 & up pulling shutters at best of 1/60th to 1/30th.

So I got myself a Holga Lens for my digital camera. Being just as cheap as an actual Holga I had very little exceptions of this little fantastic plastic jem. However, on first run (after a slight mod) I am impressed to say the least! More to come after I have used it for a while :)

Now because I obviously have heaps of time and absolutely no work to do I figured I would poke around and see what the rumor mill has to say about this whole polapremium business. What I have to say is that people initially seem to be about as skeptical as I am at first.  That is not to say that there aren’t a few metric tonnes of hope floating about out there.  Near as I can decipher from random rumors, and peeps in the know dropping hints, is that Polaroid and Unsaleable.com have teamed up to release a last run of instant films.  Rumor is saying that a release of a type 600 and possibly a replacement film for the SX70′s (that is not to say that they are releasing time zero again, my guess would be that they are releasing a type 600 that either has a built in ND filter or is a slower film closer to time zero’s ISO 150). It does seem however that the focus is going to be on the continuation of the integral films (non peel apart films) with little to no mention of pack films.

The British Journal of Photography recently published that Unsaleable.com (who is indirectly the registered owner of polapremium.com btw) was able to convince Polaroid to “produce an outstanding amount of breathtaking film, before closing down their factories”  “Many of these films are completely new products, never produced before” – spokesperson for polapremium.com

This is all super awesome except I am concerned that this is going to be nothing more then a short term run of Polaroid films that will quickly run out and within a year we will be left where we are right now. I also worry that the price is going to be an unbelievable ridiculous and arbitrary amount that would also make the long-term use of these films impractical for most, which is not unlike unsaleable to do.

What I hope to see is a return of square film formats like the type 87 or 84 because all my pack film cameras (with the exception of my land camera of course) shoot square leaving a black edge on the photo.  I would like the Polaroid to be the finished product but that stupid black edge is so ugly.  It gets to the point that I don’t shoot Polaroid with my Mamiya or Holga anymore (other than for the very few precious remaining boxes of type 84/87 I have left in my fridge).

One other possible bit of good news, that I am hoping is true, is that Polaroid may have licensed out production of type 664 and 667 films to Fuji.  The 664 I don’t really care about but in my humble opinion the 667 is a far superior Black & White then the Fuji FP 3000B.  In fact the 667 is the only medium format Polaroid brand pack film that I am sad to see go. I would also love to see the large format 8X10 etc.. come back but here I know that I am dreaming! :)

In my humble opinion what Polaroid should have done is stopped shipping date sensitive product to every Wal-Mart, London Drugs, and small town photo store in the world, and instead moved to an entire mail/internet ordering system.  Condensed the entire instant film section of the company down to their two remaining factories and have two shipping departments and a kick ass website/online presence.  Instead of having a large bloated company with sales offices all over the bloody world doing god knows what, streamline the whole thing down to the bear necessities.  It is not like the bulk of us die-hard Polaroid users haven’t been internet ordering our precious film for the last couple of years as it is.  I don’t claim to know how it all works but I will be shooting film/Polaroid till it becomes too expensive to do so. The dificulty is I am super cheap, and this sorta work makes me absolutely no money, so I fear that day is too quickly approaching.

I have gotten all the film back from our World Toy Camera Day Granville street walk about, and I am posting some highlights of the day. I shot with a large variety of cameras like the Diana+, Pentacon Six TL, Canon Film, Sprocket Holga, and Polaroid Land Camera, and other people were as equally armed with plastic crappy cameras.

Started with some Food @ The Templeton – Canon EOS3

Found some cleaning Supplies – Canon EOS 3

Then we found some camera Supplies – Canon EOS 3

Funny thing is we actually did stop for camera supplies here – Sprocket Holga

Wandered around Granville Street – Sprocket Holga

All the gear.  This was just for 6 of us :)
This photo is from Kimli. You can click on it and it has notes.

Some of the Peeps (m is missing here) – Pentacon Six TL, Canon EOS 3 with Fuji Velvia Cross Processed

And after wandering till the light was bad for our Holgas we went to the Black Frog for a Pint

You can see the rest of the days photos on flickr.

We invited people over for thanksgiving, it was a regular party with all the usual party type things then a photo shoot broke out.  It is neat to have a photo studio in ones party area! Facebook Profile photos for everyone!!

The Leica M8 is the best marriage of the old school film world and the new digital era that I can think of! If I was a rich guy I would buy this in a heartbeat!  Really to have the camera that was used by the early photography gods is cool enough! To have it digital is beyond awesome!

In fact if the R&D wasn’t so much, I would develop replacement digi-backs for all kinds of old cameras! Like the Pentax K1000, or the Canon AE1 and such! I wouldn’t spoil the fun however by putting any sort of LCD or preview screen on it!  You would still have to wait to get to a computer to see what you took photos of!! Or maybe I would ship them with the Eye-Fi card! So it could upload them to your PDA or Wi-Fi enabled device or something!  That would be fun!! In fact think of your lomo or your Holga with a strap on CMOS sensor!! That would rock! Alas it would be a venture that would be guaranteed to fail financially so would be an awful business idea!  Would be fun though! If i was rich!

So I have a fisheye lens for my holga and lately I have been sticking it on every camera I can find including my Finepix s700 point & shoot. Good times indeed :) I can also stick it on my video camera, and if i am feeling very adventurous i can even hold it up to my eye and walk about!

So I was a sucker and bought the Meg camera from the White Stripes/lomography! The funny thing was I didn’t buy it because I am a huge White Stripes fan!I bought it because it was red! (well actually it is orange which is even better for I Heart Orange I hate the Diana+ camera’s awful greenish teal thing that it has going on.0

I have been really intrigued with this camera since I first read about it but I was slow in getting it because of its awful colour. That might sound petty or something but what can I say? I am shallow I guess :)The photos that the Meg/Diana takes are awesome. I think that every type of plastic/toy camera has its own unique look and the Meg/Diana is absolutely no exception. I have only run one roll though it as of yet but I am happy with the results. There is a bit of conflicting info out there about the specs of the camera. I read in one place that the shutter is 1/60^th and others that it is 1/125^th The aperture is even more conflicting! I read that it is everything from f9 to f22. Having developed my first roll and using a light meter I think I may have a good idea of what it is. I would say that the shutter is 1/60^thish and the apertures run around f9, f11 & f16 the pin hole I was estimating it about f128 but upon inspection of the film I would say it is quite a bit more than that. (i am going to try 161 because that is the highest that my light meter will go!) I didn’t get a lot of great shots out of this first roll but that is to be somewhat expected The second roll is about half done and if I quit blogging and get some of my work done I may get a chance to finish it off today :)

The other unique thing about the Meg/Diana is the photo size! You can take 12 square shots on a roll of 120 just like the Holga or Seagull! Or you can add the film mask and take 16 square shots (it is the same as shooting 6×4.5 only square.) You don’t use a lot of the film with the 16 shot mask and the photos tend to overlap a lot.

I think that I am going to try shooting the smaller 16 shot format but wind it for 12 shots. If my idea is correct I should be able to center them in the 6×6 negative carrier with my enlarger and make prints with a nice sloppy black box around them. The classic vignetting that happens with most plastic cameras is more apparent on the full frame 12 shot mode so i am told so its a tough call as to what I wanna shoot.

Now while plastic cameras are supposed to be known for light leaks I can say that it has never been a problem for me. Never, that is until now! I did have about 3 or 4 photos on this roll that were ruined due to light leaks :( the camera was banged around a lot on the trip so they could be an isolated incident but I may need to bust out the electrical tape. All said and done the first roll was good not great but good, but then again the same was true with the Seagull, and it truly kicks ass now! It’s all about experimenting anyway right!?

…how am I ever going to go to cuba!

Yup according to Fed-EX it should be entering Canada very soon me thinks!

For those that have no idea what the hell I am talking about The White Stripes and Lomography hooked up to release a White Stripes Version of the famous Holga and the Diana and I bought a Diana/Meg. Now I hope the it arrives before we go to Banff to see Matt Good

Today’s Camera Adventure – A 35mm Holga Party!
So the other day I went to Beau Photo and grabbed the 35mm Adapter for our Holga (as well as a holga for Darren) and I ran my first roll though it.

Loading The Film
The adapter (like everything else about a Holga) is ridiculously simple to use. You replace your existing film mask (either the 6×6 for 12 Exposures or the 6X4.5 for 16 exposures) with the 35mm one. You then just wrap up the leader to the 120 spool (some people use tape, I just looped it though and then back on its self) and place the 35mm can in its slot, wind it a bit to make sure that the leader will grab, slap on the opaque camera back (the little red window of your regular holga back will expose your film) and Bob’s your uncle you have a regular 35mm holga. For panorama’s and wicked wild sprocket photography, (which I will try next) you will have to look at one of other the mods I will talk about later.

Shooting the Roll.
So you basically shoot the roll the same way that you would a roll of 120. The sunny vs cloudy and the focus all work the same; the only catch is that you need to advance the film a little different. Instead of watching for the numbers on the back like you would with 120 you need to use the winder as a guide. The Instructions for the 35mm insert suggested that you “advance the film one full rotation for each shot can be more but never less” By marking two dots with a felt marker, one on the body and one on the winder knob you can easily know what one rotation is. This will work fabulously and you can be guaranteed to not have any over lap in your photos, and will generally yield about 25 photos or so per 36exp roll. Now if you follow these instructions you will end up with negatives that look like this.

You can see that the gap between exposures is getting bigger and bigger and bigger as the roll progresses. This is because the wheel that is doing the winding is getting slightly bigger each rotation so it will wind up a little bit more length each time you advance the film, so a full rotation will eventually be complete overkill. (Hence you get about 25 exposures a 36exp roll) If you are feeling adventurous you can advance the film slightly less then the last shot to try and get the gaps consistent and closer together, as well as yield more exposures a roll, but be advised you may end up with some overlap on the edge of the frames till you get your technique down.

Unloading the Film
Now the only catch with this mod is that you need to open the camera in a pitch black environment to manually wind the roll back up! Not a big deal really, the folks at custom colour let me use their dark bag to do it or you can do it in your bathroom but you will need to block all the light coming in from the door cracks and such. Once you think you have it really dark in your bathroom sit and wait 5 to10 min to let your eyes adjust to the dark. You may just find that your dark room isn’t so dark after all! If you find that finding a darkroom to change film to be a pain, you can buy a 35mm modded Holga from HolgaMods.com that features a rewind crank for about 45 dollars plus shipping. This a little steep i think considering that it doesn’t seem to have any sort of 35mm mask and makes you find your own foam to hold the roll straight. You could get the moded holga and then add the 35mm adapter but that is getting a little bit $$ for a holga and it wouldn’t get you sprocket goodness! I personally would invest in a changing bag instead of a holga with a film rewind. Now this adapter only cost me about 12 dollars but if even that is a bit little to steep for some of you or you are looking for pano/sprocket Holga, you can mod a holga your self as per these instructions. This method will expose the whole negative including the sprocket area, as well as being a bit more panoramic. My next roll I will try something of the sort.

Developing the film.
Now the beauty of 35mm is that you can get a roll of colour negative film developed anywhere! If you get your film done at Walmart or London Drugs (shudder) you may have some interesting prints depending on the method that you use to mod the camera. the 35 Adapter will produce a regular 36x24mm exposures but the other methods including the 35mm holga from holgamods will give you around a 60mm wide panoramic exposures with the regular square film mask. I would recommend getting where ever you develop your film to not cut the negatives and scan them in your self, or get them to give you a contact print, so you can see what the sprocket area looks like. I personally always get the lab to develop only and then I cut them into strips and scan them at home. It costs around 5 bux a roll total and I can do what ever I want with it after the fact
.

All In All
I think that the film came out looking its usual holgalicious goodness but it was lacking something. I think that the larger 6X6 format captures that holga essence better then a framed 35mm shot can. I will be dropping off some 35mm sprocket photography film tomorrow so we will what that is like!