Digital Holga II

I had an email from Ted Orland whose photograph I included in the first entry on the holga/digital lens and I thought that for you holga enthusiast you might enjoy his email. He was going to leave it for a comment but had trouble with adding the comment so he gave me permission to post it in the blog. But his reply is giving me hope that the holga lens cap for my Canon 5D is going to be the answer!

Hi Billie,

I've been using my Holganon 20D for about two weeks now, and I couldn't be happier!

To answer your first question: No, there is absolutely no chance that the Canon body cap will accidentally unscrew itself -- there's considerably more friction than needed to keep it firmly in place.On the other hand, it's absurdly easy to entirely unscrew the lens itself as you focus closer. With the lens racked all the way in, so to speak, it's still focused slightly FURTHER AWAY than "infinity" (another Holga first!), so you have to rack it out a bit just to get distant mountains in focus. That also means that the minimum focusing distance is further away -- I think about 5 or 6 feet. If you try to focus closer than that you rack the lens out so far that is simply comes off the end of the focusing barrel.

I'd recommend getting a little set of 49mm "Plus" lenses to hold in front of the lens for closer subjects.The other thing I've had to contend with is that I've always seen the world in wide-angle format, as it were, and the sensor in digital cameras, being much smaller than 120 film format, effectively convert the Holga lens into the equivalent of a 75mm lens on a 35mm. The Holga camera itself yields square-format pics, of course, but as a generalization it's about the equivalent of a 24 or 28 mm lens on a 35mm. If you want to achieve that wider angle of view using the lens on the Canon, you need to buy a Kenko (brand) 0.42x auxillary lens (they're made for camcorders), model KUW-042 w/46mm thread. You can order one online from B&H for 49.95 -- though you might want to wait and see whether the telephoto effect bothers you before you spend the extra money. If you DO buy the auxillary lens, you also need to buy a 46mm skylight filter, knock the glass out of it, and wedge it onto the front of the Holga lens so you can then screw on and remove the auxillary lens easily.

And oh, I agree with you about the Lens Baby -- it just doesn't create the same ambiance as the Holga lens.

Well, good luck -- email me a pic or two (or alert me to go to your blog) when you begin getting results you like!
Cheers, Ted O