Protect Holga Film With a Plastic Drinking straw?!
August 25th, 2008 by DurkinPosted in Hacks and Mods
Many Holga users like to remove the mask that comes with the camera, to try and increase the amount of vignetting on each picture.
The problem with this is that the sharp and poorly made plastic sides in the holga camera can scratch your negatives as they pass over.
Some of you may like this effect, but for those of you that don’t, fear not! there is a very simple solution.
Use drinking straws.
You will need:
Drinking Straw
Scissors
1. Turn over your holga and remove the mask. You will notice two plastic separators. The mask clips into these. When you remove the mask you can see that the film will pass over these when it is advanced and will most probably scratch.
2. Pick your favorite colour of straw and begin to measure up to see how long you need to make it. You will need 2x the same length.
3. When you have worked out how long it needs to be, simply trim it off!
4. Next you need to complete the slightly trickier stage of cutting ALONG the straw. This will create a stiff U shape that can be clamped around the separators.
5. Once this is done you can ‘clip’ them over the plastic dividers and there you have it! A completely smooth surface for your delicate 120 film to pass over 
I hope you found this useful, Please leave a comment if you can think of any improvements or if you have any questions.
I was tempted to try my Holga without the mask I had thought of using black electrical tape but I wasn’t sure if the film would have been in the right plane.
It would be interesting to see some results of leaving the mask out. The latest Holga glass lens doesn’t seen to vignette with the standard 6×6 mask. I don’t know if the plastic lens version is any different.
I will definitely try my Holga without the mask.
Does it still leave a clear area between frames?
yes it will be fine. I jsut stopped using my mask, i basically took it out forgot about it and never put it back in. I believe it does dramatically cut leaking down.
sorry…removing the mask increases leaking, but can also increase vignetting!
i didn’t word the last comment very well
Wow, that is actually pretty ingenious
I just use black electrical tape, but this looks like it would work a treat as well 
hehe! thanks, Yeah I’m getting a film back this week where I have used them so it will be interesting to see how clean the pictures come out.
watch this space….
thanks for the comment too!
Just did this on my lunch break! Can’t wait to try it out.
haha beast! Hope it works out well for you mate, thanks for the comment
Great mod! Question, though. When running film through without a mask, is the film counter left on 12? Seems logical that it should.
BTW, this is a great blog and corner of the world.
Hi Larry, thanks for the kind compliments, I’m glad you like the blog.
And the answer to your question is yes. When you are not using a mask keep the arrow pointed at 12 to get those dreamy vignetted edges and blurring!
hopefully see you around here soon
Thanks for the response… The mod works great… Now I just have to get some film in there…
Yeah cool! The one thing I’ve heard though that you may need to be careful of, is that the straws don’t push the film far back enough to keep it in focus with the lens. I personally have had no problem with this, but I’ve heard aqua tubing for fish tanks works a lot better than just straws.
Its something to consider I guess!
Thanks for dropping by again!