Is that a camera?

Is it digital? Is that made by Fisher Price?  Wait, it shoots film?

Or my personal favorite…

What are you doing?

There is something special and fun about shooting toy cameras.  First, nobody gets them.  And the people who do, LOVE IT.  I’ve been working on a toy camera exclusive project and I’ve heard so many “OMG, is that a Diana?  Can I hold it.  I have to get one of these!” 

Or, there are the people who are around when I’m taking a pinhole photo that are generally confused (and a little nosy) and want to know what you’re doing – only to be confused further when you say, “I’m taking a picture.  That’s a camera.”  I know what they’re thinking… “that box/paint can/lifesavers tin/insert random object is a camera?  Okay, I’m just going to walk away slow.”

But my best advice is to take it all in stride.  Or educate people.  I found a lot of people were fairly astonished to know that I spent $70 on a multi-colored Holga.  “But, why, isn’t it just plastic?”  Well, yeah, but it’s the most amazing plastic I can possibly get my hands on.

I love it.  If you see me on the street with a toy camera, feel free to ask “Is that a camera?”  I’ll tell you all about it!

Kelly

Feel Like Dissecting a Holga?

Me too.  So I did.  Then I tinkered.  Then I spent a half hour trying to fix what my tinkering damaged…

Some details:

Remember when I told you Holga really only had one aperture, around f13.  Well, I made my Holga have 2 apertures.  Around f7 and f12.

Step 1: Remove the lens.  Use that great tutorial I posted here a while back.  See that black ring on the desk, I popped it off the lens with a pen.  It was giving me a small aperture, so we took it off.

I went one step further and shaved some of the plastic down.  Don’t take it too far!  See that square in the shutter assembly in the back on the camera?  Don’t make your aperture any bigger than that.

Oooh, lots of light now.

Measure it.  Divide the focal length (60mm for Holga) by the diameter of the circle.  That’s how you find your f-stop.  Write it on the camera with a sharpie once you know it, it’s handy.

Next, I decided that I wanted 2 f-stops.  So I took the thing apart.  So, in a nutshell – here’s why Holga only has one aperture.  It’s because the swing arm that comes over the shutter when you set it to sunny is just a big square hole that is bigger than your existing aperture.  It’s not blocking any more light.  So, all we need to do is attach something that is smaller than the aperture on the lens.

My solution was to glue on the ring I just took off the lens in step 1.

So, take that aperture swing bar out, and glue on your new aperture ring.  I painted around the corners with black nail polish to cut down on light leaks.  Then I sanded the thing to make it fairly flat.

Put the camera back together.

Tips:

If you don’t mutilate the ring when you remove it in step 1, it’s far easier to put back on.

Try to get the new aperture as flat as possible.  It wasn’t meant to take up more room in the shutter mechanism and it will stick sometimes.

Another way to avoid sticking is to not screw the shutter assembly together quite as tight.  Having a little slack lets the arm swing freely.

If you’ve set up your lens so it screws on and off, you should be able to free a stuck arm by removing the lens and pushing the arm with a pen.

Be really diligent about keeping those yellow wires attached unless you don’t care if your hot shoe works.  I taped my wires in and still had to re-do it 12 times.

Good luck!

Shasta Betty

Your Lomo Settings

Note: This is the third post today, please don’t forget to scroll down and see what else is new.

Sunny and Cloudy.  N and B.  Pictures of little people on your Holga?

Now that we know something about metering, wouldn’t it be nice to tie that in when using a Holga or Diana?

First, Holgas.  Here’s what the pictures on your focusing ring mean.

Now, forget your cloudy or sunny settings.  Seriously, unless you’ve modified the camera or had someone do it, you have ONE F-STOP that is approximately f/13. 

You do, however, usually have 2 shutter speeds.  B and N.  N is around 1/100th of a second.  B stands for Bulb and will stay open as long as you want.

It’s okay, put in the film with an ISO that will work for you.  Film speed is your friend.

Dianas.

These are a little more precise.  First, your focusing ring has distances listed instead of pictures.

On your aperture ring for the Diana F+, the cloudy aperture is f11, partly cloudy is f16 and sunny is f22. The pinhole is approximately f150.  For the Diana Mini, the cloudy aperture is f8, sunny is f11. 

Just remember, all the apertures on these are approximate and vary.  If you are really curious, tear the thing open and measure the diameter to calculate your f-stop.  Having opened my Holga twice and accidentally disconnected the wiring that controls the flash twice and having to go back in and rewire twice, I won’t be doing this anytime soon.

The shutter speed is approximately 1/60th of a second on N, and Bulb on B.

How to Use Bulb

Remember, Bulb will stay open as long as you press the shutter.  So here are some handy lomo tools to go with your bulb settings.

The Diana F+ has a little plastic piece attached to the strap.  Once you’ve pressed the shutter, you put the end of this into the slit where the shutter button is, above the button.  This should lock the button down.  It’s a little clumsy, but they sell a cable release collar that can make it less clumsy.

Holga also has a cable release collar.

The Diana Mini reigns supreme in my eyes, by having a built in cable release attachment.  Just screw a traditional cable release cord in.

Alright… that was educational.  I meant to start my night photography series today and got sidetracked… Oops.  I just wanted to make sure you had all the relevant background information.  I fully plan on doing some night photography with my Holga or Dianas!  Hope you will too!

See you tomorrow

Shasta Betty

Film Masks

A mask in film photography is simply the piece of plastic, cardboard, whatever… that defines how much of a piece of film will be exposed during each frame.  In some 120 cameras, you have a 6x6 mask and a 6x4.5 mask.  If you have a Diana mini, you may notice each frame is not the same size as normal 35mm, some are tall and skinny and some are square.

While there are standard sizes used in film photography, you can really use whatever size, or shape you want.  All you have to do is create the frame and put it between your lens and your film.

I decided I wanted to shoot a roll of Holga film using a Heart shaped mask.  It’s cutesy and a little silly, but you might like it.  Here’s what I did:

I grabbed the 6x6 mask that came with my Holga.  You don’t need to do this on an existing mask, it just made it easier.

Cut out a shape.  It doesn’t have to be a heart, it could be anything actually.  Cut it out of cardstock or a magazine cover.  Something thick and dark enough that you can’t see light through it.  Use electrical tape and attach it to the mask or the inside of the camera right next to where the film will be.

Put your shape upside-down!  The images projected on your film are actually upside-down.  Trust me on this, you’ll see why in a second.

Put the mask back in and load film, then shoot away.

Here’s the result from my first roll.  I forgot to put my mask in upside-down.  So the heart is straight, but the picture is upside down.  Duh.

Or, the picture is straight, but the heart is upside-down.  Double Duh.

There ya go, easy and fun.  You can frame your pictures in just about any shape you can cut out. 

Alternate ideas I’ve heard…. Making 2 masks that are opposite of each other (one blocks out the center, the second blocks out the sides – for example).  Put in one, run the film through.  Switch and run the film through again.  Split frame photos…. strange!  I’m going to try this one soon…

Shasta Betty

Rayko Toy Camera Show

Update: I will be submitting 5 total prints, I added 2 more and could use some input, although I have a pretty good idea of what direction I’ll go…. the submission deadline is today (1/13), nothing like doing it at the last minute.  Thanks!

Every year, the Rayko photographic center in San Francisco hosts a toy camera show.  This is the first year I actually knew about the deadline in time to submit work.  I am submitting at least 3 pieces (maybe more but additional entries cost $$$) and the deadline is tomorrow.  Since, I’m sending digital files and prints don’t have to be ready for a couple weeks, I’m developing a couple more rolls of film tomorrow before I make a final decision, but here are my top contenders at the moment.

Feedback greatly appreciated.  Ignore the dust, my film scanner is dirty.

Shot with Holga

Shot with a Diana Mini, and I have zero intention of correcting the contrast, I like it washed out.

35mm film in Holga.

Shot with Anscoflex.

Any favorites?

Thanks!

Shasta Betty

Double exposure and flash gels

Finally, a Holga post.  A fun Holga post, at that.

There are a number of cool flashes out there for Holga and Diana cameras.  The most fun ones have gels, little clear cards you can put over the bulb to make the flash come out a certain color.

This means you can have pictures that flash with blue or pink.  Or both.

Simple to do.  Grab a camera that will allow you to expose the same frame twice without winding.  Holgas, Dianas, etc.  Put on your flash with the first color gel.  Set your Holga to the “Sunny” setting instead of “Cloudy/Flash”, the goal is to have it be underexposed because you’re exposing twice.  Handhold your shot, find something fun and take a picture.  Put in the other color gel and sit in roughly the same area looking at roughly the same scene.  Take another shot.  Repeat as necessary.  It’s very experimental, but the idea is not to use a tripod and not to be perfect.

Tips:

The darker the room, the less the chance of blowing out the shot with the flash.  I did this in the pitch black. 

If you have another Holga or Diana with a Polaroid back (or even maybe a camera set to Bulb if your space is dark enough and you can manually trigger the flash), play with this with Polaroids for a while before switching to film.  You’ll get a slew of instant results and a better idea of what settings to use.

Try color gels that contrast each other more than they compliment each other.  Also use gels that are about equal on the brightness scale.  I tried a dark blue with yellow, and the yellow was drowned out.

Other Ideas:

Use a tripod and move the subject within the frame during each exposure.

If you must go digital, find a really dark space (no light at all), put your camera on Bulb, open the shutter and fire the flash with the manual trigger.

Good luck!

Shasta Betty

The Holga Mod that begins all Holga Mods

Long story short, I was trying to do one modification to my Holga to enable for closer focusing by taking it apart and moving this plastic stop, but instead I just decided to make the lens removable.  It just screws on and off whenever.  This lets you do a lot of things.

1. Because the lens unscrews, you can turn it past the “one person” picture on the focus ring and it will focus on stuff closer than the typical 3 feet.  You can turn it pretty much until it falls off.  I shot a roll like this, we’ll see what happens, but it’s a pretty well known mod so I know it works.

2. Instead of waiting for the Holga to break or sawing it apart to make a Pinholga, you just unscrew the lens and carefully tape a pinhole over the shutter and set it on Bulb.  Tada!  Pinholga.  Easy.

3. I can now take the Holga lens and tape it through various mechanisms to my DSLR.  Although, there is no focusing, so stuff that is close will be in focus, but you’d have to do something fancier than what I did to control focus.

I’m sure the list goes on, but for now, let’s just look at how you do this:

Open the back and take out the mask.  There are 2 screws in there, top right-ish and bottom left-ish, take those out.  Then the whole lens/shutter assembly will come out.  Be extra careful not to detach those yellow wires, they make the hotshoe work.

Now, I unscrewed the shutter mechanism thinking that I had to, but you don’t.  See the deep screw hole on the bottom left side of these 2 pictures?  That’s the screw that catches the stops on the back of the Holga lens so it won’t unscrew too far in either direction.  Just loosen that screw until the lens will come off.

Put the front back together.

The end.  Crazy easy.

So, here’s where I decided to start electrical taping toy camera lenses to my DSLR using extension tubes (although you could drill out a spare body cap instead).

On top, the Holga lens, on bottom, the lens from my Diana F+ (which conveniently detaches on it’s own)

Results from the Holga lens, which works best up close, and is surprisingly sharp:

Results from the Diana lens, which works best at mid distances and is really hazy:

I spent a lot of time playing with focal length on the Diana, since it has a focusing ring on the lens and I was hoping I could make it more functional, but this is the best I got.  I think with more research and more playing, I’ll be able to find something ideal for both of these lenses to make them work a little better.

Other Holgas and Attachments

One nice thing about the toy camera fad is that there are a variety of weird attachments and specialized cameras you can buy that do weird things.  Holga even makes a 3D camera (which I’ve never personally used, but sounds cool). 

Two Holga varieties I have played with lately are the Holga Fisheye attachment and the Holga 35mm pinhole camera.  (By the way, if the shutter spring ever breaks on a Holga, you can make it into a pinhole camera as well very easily.  Google tutorials, there are a ton out there.)

The fisheye attachment.  

One thing I learned about this guy was that it made everything more wide angle than it will look in your normal Holga viewfinder, so be prepared to have some extra stuff included in your shot.  Not really a tragedy when shooting architecture or landscapes, but a shot of a skateboarder I took turned into a shot of a skatepark.  I got some that I love, however, here they are.

The pictures are weird, circular and bent.  As should be expected.  With this thing, my favorite shots have these great straight lines that are bent and show the effect the most.  If you Google Holga fisheyes, you can find some interesting shots of Times Square.

Next, Holga Pinhole.  Of course they went there.

 

Now, I wasn’t entirely impressed with this camera, although it was fun, for a couple reasons.  First, the Diana has a pinhole setting and removable lens, so it offers more functions in one toy camera.  Second, I thought some of my shots were too sharp.  I’ve built some pinholes that are beautifully hazy.  I’ve also built large format pinholes that are remarkably clear (upcoming post).  However, I figured the Holga would fall on the hazy side so I don’t like the shots as much.  The first shot is an example of the sharpness I don’t like.  The second is a longer exposure with a moving subject, which I do like.

One thing I will admit a pinhole is always fun for is the infinite depth of field, which you can really see in the first shot.  I doubt most cameras would have picked up both the tree in the foreground and the entire landscape in the background as clearly.

Finally, Print of the Week!

I shot this with a friends Anscoflex II.  No f-stop control, no shutter speeds.  A mint green plastic TLR designed by the guy who made the Studebaker.  The only way to “control” exposure in this scenario is with different film speeds.  I love how this shot looks really old and has a distinct lack of contrast.

I also used an enlarger that isn’t exactly meant to print 120 film, so I could slide the negative holder around a little to control vignetting, which is arguably my favorite effect.