Top Tips For Holga Beginners: A Crash Course!

So you just have your Holga, directly from Hong Kong no doubt, but your a little nervous because you don’t know how to use it, or your worried about things going wrong.

I thought I would take the time to write out some of the problems that beginner holga users encounter, and offer solutions or tips.

I also ask you to leave yours in a comment below! The more help we give to the beginners the more creative photography we will see in the near future.

1. Learn to Load and unload Your Holga safely

Probably the main thing that beginners trip up on is loading the 120 film that you have never seen before. Well don’t worry, there are hundreds of places on the net where you can learn.

Below are two videos of how to load your film and unload your film safely. If this is a little fast, you can check out my post on How to Load Holga Film

Load:

Unload:

2. Advance Window Trickery!
Many people have the problem of not knowing which number to point the arrow at in the advance window. Well its quite straight forward

For 12 exposures Point arrow AT 12
For 16 exposures Points arrow AT 16

make sure you have the right mask inside your Holga before you do this. The two that come with the camera are marked with 12 and 16 at the top right hand corner.

3. The Holga Lens
The Holga lens has a number of different focusing measurements. One problem that i had when i got my Holga was that I could never remember how much each one was.

The symbols help, but here are the measurements. You could print this off and attach it to the back of your Holga for reference:

4.  The Viewfinder
The viewfinder is basically useless on a Holga. You may notice that its to the left of the lens, meaning that what you see through it is slightly left of what is actually taken.

This viewfinder does not go through the lens like an SLR camera. It is simply there as i guide. I rarely use it and suggest learning not to if you want to become a good street photographer!

5. The aperture
Your Holga camera has two stops in the lens. Many say that they don’t make that much difference, but I think they must do because they increase the stop by quite a lot.

The stops are controlled using the little switch on top of your lens. Make sure the sun symbol is showing if its sunny and the flash symbol if its a little dark, or you are using a flash!

6. Ditch those Metal clips now!
Those clips on your Holga holding the back on are a waste of time, and will fall off if you carry your holga around in a bag. Take my advise and get yourself some black duct tape and start taping the thing up!

If you need more information about taping your Holga have a look at the post I have written: Light leaks and controlling them

7. What film To Buy and Use
Film is tricky when you know nothing about it. The Holga can take colour, Black and white, slide and more. I suggest sticking to these three for now.

Color and Black and White are easy to get hold of and are the cheapest. Slide is a little more expensive but you can get some vivid colours with it.

On sunny days the best film speed to get is 100 or 125, no more than 200 or you’ll start getting some over exposures.

Keep 400 and above handy for low light situations, such as night shots or overcast days.Kodak, Fuji and ilford all make good film. I use ilford the most.

8. Getting Shakey photographs?
Look underneath your lens. You will find another little switch. This controls whether or not you are using the bulb setting or the standard 1/125th of a second shutter speed. When looking at the Holga from behind, the switch should be over to the left unless you want a long exposure and are using a tripod. (The bulb setting is a setting where the shutter stays open as long as you hold the shutter button down)