Pixiq

Imagine images that glow, a world where ordinary objects take on a luminosity that fills them with light and mystery. That’s what you get with a Holga lens and without manipulation in PhotoShop, It is an antidote to a world obsessed with detail and precision and it allows, no forces, a modern photographer to take the time to see, observe and think. 

Holga lenses are sold by HolgaDirect, which has just announced their new line of Holgas in mounts for most brands of interchangeable lens digital cameras. 

These lenses are made of plastic and have a tiny glass meniscus lens in them. They are about as basic and low tech as you can get, yet they can produce beautiful images. I’ve had mine for a month now and I’ve loaded a number of Holga shots in the gallery to give you an idea of what this lens can do. 

But let’s start with the specifications for the definitely low tech Holga. 

• Effective Focal Length:  25mm
• Aperture:  Fixed f/8
• Focus:  Manual Zone Focus
• Lens Type:  Plastic
• Dimensions:  38x57mm
• Weight:  38g (1 1/3 ounces)
• MSRP $24.95 

On a full frame digital camera, the Holga is a 25mm wide angle, on an APS-C camera with a 1.5X lens factor it is a 37.5mm moderate wide angle and on a camera like the Panasonic G3 or Olympus Pen it is a normal “50mm” lens. 

The aperture of the Holga is fixed at f/8 and since there are no electric connections between lens and camera, you can’t use Auto exposure mode. Instead, you need to work with Aperture Preferred, Manual or Program settings.

On the Holga lens barrel is a series of icons--zone focusing icons. Setting the lens to the “head” icon allows you to shoot portraits with a little more “sharpness” than shooting them at the “mountain” setting. But in truth, I often forget about focusing and just let the lens do its thing set at the little “crowd” icon. The Holga is a soft focus lens and that is after all the whole point. The Holga embraces soft focus and the chromatic aberration that modern cameras do their best to eliminate, and with the Holga you get a lot of vignetting, not just a little but a lot. 

Now some of you may be sneering at the idea of putting a “toy” lens on a several hundred or thousand dollar dSLR and in effect, turning it into a toy camera. I was in the sneering crowd too until a friend showed me some of his shots and urged me to get one. After using the Holga, I have to admit that it adds something to picture taking; surprise and fun. 

And in the hands of a professional like photographer David Burnett it can take award winning photos like his 2001 Holga photo of Al Gore that took a top prize at that year's White House News Photographers’ Association competiton. 

The soft Holga images should also be a reminder to all of us, that photography has gone through phases in which the idea of artistic beauty has changed. Our zealous striving for super sharp images is a product of Ansel Adams and the F/64 Group in the 1930s and 1940s. Prior to that, for fifty years, the “Pictorialist” movement held sway. Pictorialists thought that soft focus pictures were beautiful and sharpness was awful. Adams and company ended that and we have forgotten the Pictorialist and despite some of the exquisite images they made. 

The history of the Holga itself is also quite a tale. Created in 1981 by T. M. Lee it was the lens for a 120mm plastic camera. Mr. Lee’s the idea was to provide a very cheap camera for the working class masses of China. The camera was a success and the manufacturers soon started looking for new markets. Soon Holga cameras were in the hands of photographers around the world who loved the surreal images they produce. The cheap, plasticky, Holga lens, if nothing else, offers the digital photographer an enjoyable option, a way to take a break from total sharpness. 

I like to think of the Holga as the basic tool of the “Slow Photo” movement--a movement anyone can join. Like the “Slow Food” movement of the last two decades that urged people to take the time to enjoy meals, I (and others) propose the “Slow Photo” movement. Our goal is simply to have photographers slow down and take the time to enjoy photography again. Time to concentrate on seeing and observing innstead of the number of megapixels in your life. With the Holga it is not an either or situation, the damn lens is so cheap it is a no-brainer. I keep one in my camera bag at all times and use it when I see something I think will work with it's softness. My images in the gallery should give you an idea of what I mean. While they are in B/W, the Holga works just as well with color images and is incredible when used making HDTV videos. 

While the Holga limits you with its fixed aperture, zone focus and soft image these limits can oddly, also free your vision. You don't need to give up sharp images, rather you are adding soft ones to your visual vocabulary and expanding your photographic repertoire. 

 For more on Holga lenses go to http://shop.holgadirect.com

Note: Holga has lots of lenses but the lens I am talking about is one of the new ones in digital camera mounts. These new lenses are coded with a G for their glass elements. For example, the Holga for Panasonic cameras is coded HL(W)-PLG.