35mm In Lubitel 166b TLR

Of course, this is not on the theme of Holga cameras, but it is a Lomo.

Is it possible to use 35mm in a Lubitel 166b? Hans, a user of a photography group on myspace (classic cameras) asked me if its possible on a 6×6 folding camera.

I thought i would try it with the Lubitel 166B as its pretty much the only other 120 film camera I have apart from my Holga.

As far as I am aware, you can just apply the hack that i wrote about using 35mm film in a holga

Now I believe that the lens of the Lubitel only works correctly for Black and White film, however I was informed about this thread on a forum recently, and the colour photograph looks to be fine.

Here is why I think it should work just as well.

I’m literally using the same spool here. The elastic bands are there to hold the 35mm in place and ensure a secure way of spooling it.

If you can see on the left of the camera over to the right, its pretty much the same principal as the Holga. At first I did think that the 35mm canister wouldn’t fit, but eventually it popped in, and the Lubitel closed, I checked!

Again I used foam to stop the canister from slipping around. In this example the canister has already been used, and its a colour film. Its there only as a demonstration!

Just a close up of the elastic band on the spool to show how it still fits just as well as in the Holga. One thing about the Lubitel is that it has its own film tension plates inside the film compartments, and a pressing plate too, so you won’t need to worry about folding up little pieces of paper to make it tight.

finally, you also don’t need to mask the back (although you may want to anyway!) because the Lubitel has its own cover, which covers up the hole with a metal plate.

A couple of issues about the hack:

• I have no idea how many clicks you have to turn the advance wheel for each frame. I assume its slightly more than the Holga.
• I’ve never actually tried this hack, but i see no reason why it wouldn’t work.
• I believe the Lubitel works best with black and white film, but colour does also appear to work
• Using the viewfinder does not mean that that is what you will get on the film. Remember the 35mm film is a lot thinner.

I hope you found this interesting. Its certainly something that I will be looking into trying once I get my hands on some Black and White 35mm film.

Durkin

10 Inspirational Holga Photographs From Flickr

Here are 10 Holga photographs that should hopefully give you enough inspiration to get up from the computer and go and take some for yourself.

I have been lacking some myself recently and thats why i have made the post!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/microabi/1416775469/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eyetwist/171311723/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/god_dess_ss/271576666/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thoburn/447286301/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/goda/263927647/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rob_birze/183186347/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thoburn/1231286185/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulhitz/1119813741/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackcustard/53109278/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulmetzgar/2359239847/

Clamp Shutter release for Bulb Photographs!

I just found this excellent way of keeping your shutter open when you want a long exposure. Its on flickr and here is the picture.

Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/burnblue/303010051/

There is some talk in the comments about buying a hacked Holga from http://holgamods.com, but personally i think this is genious!

Apparently you can pick up the clamps from your local hardware store for around £5 or $10. Much better than a $40 Holga from holgamods!

How to Use 35mm Film In Your Holga

Being able to use 35mm film in your Holga camera is easier than you think. Here is a step by step guide of how to hack your Holga so that it works correctly.

Admittedly, I was going to make a video tutorial for this but my video camera kept breaking my balls!

1. These are all the Ingredients that you will need.

Scissors, Spool, 2x elastic bands, holga camera, old/new sponge, electrical tape, 35mm film and box

2. Cut out two squares of sponge with your very sharp scissors.

3. Check that it fits in the LEFT HAND compartment ok

4. Attach two elastic bands to your plastic spool. One at the top and one at the bottom.

5. Check that your film will fit through nicely. (REMEMBER its the thickest part of the film that needs to fit. not just the tail!)

6. Next, tape the tail of the film to the spool. This is because its slightly stiffer than 120 roll and could slip off.

7. When this is done, slowly pull out the film and position it in the camera correctly, making sure that the spool is locked in place under the advance pin. You don’t need your mask inside by the way.

8. Now place the two foam pieces you prepared earlier, above and below the 35mm canister. This holds it in place.

9. Cut another thin piece of foam to place over the 35mm canister.

10. Tape this over the canister to secure…

11. Next rip a piece off your film packet.

12. Fold and place under the spool on the right. This adds tension and prevents movement.

13. Place the back on, and then cut a small piece of foam out and tape it over the window. Unlike the 120 film 35mm doesn’t have a paper back, so having a window will ruin all your pictures!

14.Tape it all up so its nice and lightproof (Use black tape if possible. White is all i had!). OH NO HOW DO I KNOW WHERE TO ADVANCE?? see bottom of tutorial!

15. Mask everything else up and thats it! Your ready to shoot

**One problem is that you don’t know which frame you are at with this Holga hack! Advance the film for 34 clicks on the advance wheel for every frame. If you lose count start again, because its better to have a big space rather than an overlap.

If you have any questions please ask, and use black tape instead of white! I didn’t have any.

Who needs the Holga 135? not me…

How to ‘Holgerize’ an image

This is a tutorial of how to turn a normal photograph in to a black and white photograph that looks like its been take by a Holga camera. For this tutorial I am going to use Photoshop CS3 but I think it will pretty much work in any.

(Click to enlarge Images.)

1. Get the image you want to edit. In this case I have chosen an old car.

Image

2. Open it up in Photoshop CS3 (or the version you have!)

3. select the ‘Crop tool’ and select the area that you want. Hold down shift while you drag out the box to make a perfect square.

4. When you are happy with your selection hit ENTER.

5. Hit Ctrl+SHIFT+u to make image black and white.

6. Next go Image > adjustments > Brightness and Contrast. (There are a number of ways to do this but I find this the quickest!)

An editor will pop up. Play around with the two sliders until you are happy…

7. Hit the gradient tool button> select ‘Radial gradient’ > tick reverse.

8. Click on the actual gradient thumbnail in the top left.

An editor should appear…Make sure your colours are black and white > select the second gradient from the left > move the top right arrow down to 30% (opacity 0). hit OK.

9. Still on the gradient tool, Start in the middle of the picture and drag the gradient tool out towards one of the corners. (this can take some experimentation. Use your history to try again. or hit Ctrl+Z).

10. The final result should looks something like this…

Additional step - Add Blur

If you wnat to go the extra distance and add the characteristic blur of the Holga lens, then follow these steps.

1. Select the Elliptical marquee tool. Feather it by around 20-30px > Make a circle around the center of your image, again holding shift to make it perfectly round

2. Hit Ctrl+SHIFT+I to inverse the selection.

3. Go Filter > Gaussian Blur and set the radius to 1.9px.

4. Hit OK and your done…

I hope this helps. If you have any problems please leave a comment and I will gladly answer.

With thanks to the internet.

Durkin

The Pinhole Holga

I’ve just recently noticed that Lomo have now also released a pinhole Holga camera. I thought i would discuss its main features and some of the positive and negative aspects of the camera

Specification

• Format: 120mm (all types supported)
• Focus: No lens, absolutely “free focus”
• Aperture: f/192
• Shutter speeds: B only
• Tripod Thread: Yes

More Information

The Lomo website claims that the pinhole camera is something of a “heavy hitter.” I’m not quite sure what that means but I can conclude that it does sound pretty cool.

The camera has a characteristic soft focus, producing a very dreamy feeling. This combined with the fact that multiple exposures can be done could lead to some very interesting effects.

Lomo also states on the website that “any moving subject is rendered as a ghostly blur.” I think this will further add to the unique nature of the photographs.

One of the coolest features of the pinhole camera is that it provides an unlimited depth of field meaning meaning that the closest objects to the furthest away will all be in focus.

On the positive side, the camera is very easy to use, includes all the standard features you would expect of a Holga (tripod mount, multiple exposures) and it can produce unique or different images.

On the negative side though, it just looks like another one of those gimmicks that Lomo have brought out in order to sell more cameras.

I’m sure with some research and experimentation, it would be very easy to hack your own Holga and create a pinhole version. I would be interested in seeing how similar results are.

The official page

The “Jack White” Limited Edition Holga 120CFN

Did you know that Jack White now has his own custom (and limited edition) Holga camera?

Features

The camera is based around the Holga 120CFN and so shares all the features of the camera.

• Accepts all 120mm film types (Colour, black and white, slide)
• Plastic 60mm, f/8 Lens
• Manual focus with four distance settings (Key included on lens)
• Aperture settings: f/8, f/11
• Shutter speeds: 1/125, “B“
• Color gel flash (Red and Clear ONLY)
• Multiple exposures allowed
• Standard tripod thread on bottom.

Additional Features

This particular version of the camera comes complete in a box set with all these additional features.

Titanium Fisheye Adaptor lens
The fish eye adapter Fits onto your Holga and offers “knockout super-wide images”, which yield a nearly circular image on a square print.

The lens offers the most extreme effects when literally centimeters away from the subject.

Three Plastic filters
A unique “peppermint” filter that places a soft peppermint design over the top of your photographs. Personally I can’t imagine that you would use this that much, but I guess its a cool idea.

Filter mount
Useful if you get other fiters for your holga, but not essential. Tape usually works and this just adds to the price of the package. Its needed for the Peppermint filter though.

“The World Through a Plastic Lens” book.
Probably one of the more interesting features of the box set is the “world through a plastic lens” book.

Essentials: batteries, tape, and one roll of 120 film.
very usful for people just getting into photography. This package is literally all you need to get your first roll of film done.

My advice is to stick with the original Holga 120CFN, and try and realise that the colour of your Holga really makes no difference to the quality of your photographs. Go on eBay and get yourself a cheap 120CFN rather than this camera if you are serious about photography.

Have you heard about the 35mm Holga, the Holga 135?

This isn’t exactly the most up-to-date information at the moment but I still thought that it was well worth a share.

I found out a few months a go that Holga have released a 35mm version of their famous camera.

So no more of those lonely nights in converting your 120! The Holga 135 allows 35mm film only.

I had a quick glance over at eBay and they are going there for around £18.99. I think thats fairly expensive for what the camera actually is, but what the hell, they have a niche now and people will buy it.

The lens has the option of two f stops (f/8 and f/11) while the shutter shoots at a rather slower than I imagined 1/100th of a second. Of course there is the option of bulb too.

The lens also has the characteristic four manual focal points (portrait, small group, big group, and infinity) each with its own symbol to help you out when your rushing for a shot.

Again the advancing system means that you can either choose to advance the film one full frame or keep it on the same frame for multiple exposures.

On the old Holga 120’s the film number is on the back so I assume the winder automatically stops when 1 frame is wound. If any one could clear this up that would be great.

Conclusion: 

In my opinion the camera looks fun, but I don’t think its really worth the price its retailed at. There are far better 35mm cameras out there on eBay that cost a lot less.

My Holga on the Beach

I thought that a nice way to start Go Holga, would be to post some of my favorite pictures that I have taken with the camera. Although a lot of people say that the Holga is overpriced and just a gimmick, I really do like the characteristics of the photographs that it takes. Here are a few examples of what it can do.

I felt that i got some really powerful colours in these shots, and i really liked the Vignetting that I got too.

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think of them. I would also like some constructive criticism. Thanks!