Howard over on Motivation blog (scroll to the bottom to see his best shot so far) has just gotten a Holga camera and is posting some of his first images. He inspired me to take a look at some of my recent Holga shots. Working with the Holga color negatives always drives me a little crazy. The color is off. I can never decide whether to leave it "off" or try to fix it. And if I decide to "fix it" it still isn't quite right but the fixed not quite right looks better to me than the original scan. Still it is off enough to be just a little disconcerting.I do have a love/hate relationship with the Holga. I want to find another love, a substitute that lets me work with digital capture but it seems I can never put the film Holga completely out of mind. The holga film image is just a little different. Well Fred Picker always said, "The same is the same and different is different."
2 comments:
Billie, thanks for the mention. I haven't shot color in the Holga yet, just black and white. But I have seen Holga color images and I think that the 'off' color looks rather unique....almost over-saturated and a bit shifted, as you say. I am really having a blast developing the black and white myself and seeing what I get. Just started with a pinhole camera as well.
I wonder, though, if some of the off color you mention could be related to the scanner. I know you use the Epson V700 because I took your recommendation and got one myself. I haven't used it for color yet but wonder if some of the shifts might be from using the scanner unprofiled. If you are getting good color fidelity from your non-Holga shots then that theory is shot down. But if not, Silverfast (a bit pricey) does have software for the V700 that includes an IT8 target to profile the scanner.
On the other hand, why not post some that are uncorrected to see what people think....that might be fun.
In terms of digital 'fun' there are Holga lenses adapted for digital cameras that Randy sells but because the image falls on a much smaller sensor I don't think you get the full Holga effect though it is much easier than having to send the film out for processing.
Howard, I've had prof scans made of some color holga negs and it still had the same color shifts but I'm sure I could do a better job with scanning them myself if I really get serious about some of the images.
I have Randy's holga lens cap for my Canon 5D. I think it might be better if it wasn't a full frame camera because it gets very smeary on the edges so I usually crop square. Here is a set of the digital holga images.
http://flickr.com/photos/billie_mercer/sets/72157594445090615/
It is fun to use and see what happens shooting into the sun and through car windows and close up, etc. So while the digital holga isn't all bad, it isn't the same as the film.
I'll be watching to see you pin-hole images.
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