DIY Pressure Plate For Holga Camera
August 10th, 2008 by DurkinPosted in Modification
As you may well know, more expensive 120 and 35mm cameras have a small metal sheet behind the film that puts pressure on the film when a picture is taken. This helps to keep it taught and will ‘improve’ the quality of your image.
The holga does not have a pressure plate, and therefore you get some crazy effect, such as blurring.
Be warned, adding this pressure plate may take away some of the characteristics of a Holga photograph that you may like. You probably will get limited blurring and a sharper image.
If you strive to ‘improve’ the quality of your Holga images, I suggest you give this a go.
Here is what you need:
Blu tack
Exacto Knife
Thick card
Ruler
Pen
1.Begin by measuring out the back of the holga and work out where the advance window is in relation to everything else. You will need to make a plate that fits inside the area I have highlighted below. As you can see the holga has some useful guidelines built in.
Leaving a gap for the advance window is essential because you don’t want to block the view to the frame numbers.
2. Next, get hold of some thick card and begin to draw out the template that you have measured out so that you can cut around it. You want it nice and neat!
3. Cut out the card, ensuring that its thick enough to apply pressure on to your film. You may need to make two that you can stack on top of each other if you are using thin card.
4. Next you will need to make some “buffers” because the back of the Holga camera is uneven and your card needs to stay flat and rigid.
I Blu tacked three scraps of card that I could then use to Blu tack the plate to.
5. And that’s it. You are ready to use your plate to make those Holga images even better! Remember, using Blu tack means that the feature isn’t permanent. I have not yet tried it out but I assume it will work quite nicely.
Jay on Aug 10, 2008
thanks for the tutorial, I will give this a try soon. Holgas are such cool cameras!
Durkin on Aug 10, 2008
no problem, Glad you liked the post! The Holga camera is awesome yeah, i love it so much.
absolute0 on Aug 10, 2008
very useful. sometimes the film buckles (evidenced by supposedly straight horizontal lines becoming curved in pictures) and a pressure plate could prevent that.
Durkin on Aug 11, 2008
thanks for the comment! Glad you like the idea
I can’t wait to see the results!
Steve on Aug 11, 2008
Hey Tom! Very cool tip which will probably be useful to many people. However, you will not want to cut a hole for frame numbers or you will fog your 220 and 35mm film. As you may remember, 220 film doesn’t have the backing paper of 120 film, so any light going through the frame window will fog the film. The window is really only useful with 120 film. For using other types of film the window should be completely covered. In this case you have to count the number of clicks for frame advancing. I think it’s 34 for medium format, but I could be off. In any case, didn’t want you or anyone else to lose a roll of film because of accidental exposure to light!
Durkin on Aug 11, 2008
thanks for the comment, yes this is only for use with 120, hens the hole to see the numbers on the paper backing
La-la on Sep 17, 2008
Hey Tom… this is a great idea, however I just tried doing this myself and ran into a problem. After attaching my “pressure plate”, I was not able to put the cameraback back on the camera. The pressure plate was being blocked by the two sides of the film plane in the camera body (the area where the 120 film is position during exposure).
I then realized I needed to actually cut the cardboard to fit the film plane, as opposed to the square area on the camera back. As the square on the camera back is slightly bigger- thus, not allowing for the back to fit back onto the camera.
I hope this is helpful for anyone who wants to try this. Thanks for the inspiration Tom. I’ll let you know how it turns out. I am craving some in-focus pictures, but still want to use my holga!!
Durkin on Sep 17, 2008
Hey, yeah when I briefly tried putting the back on I also noticed this problem and I think you are correct, you need to make the square a little smaller.
Either that or file down the plastic sides ^_^
thanks for the post
Chris on Oct 2, 2008
I seriously need this! Just got my first Holga last week and processed the film. All these weird line marks from from the camera’s back. Will definitely make.
Durkin on Oct 3, 2008
cool! Glad you found this post useful! I hope the plate works out for you
Chris on Oct 10, 2008
*FOR STEVE*
It’s only 24 clicks to advance 35mm film, and I think it’s pretty much the same for 120 film.