My SX-70
This is our first article with super-duper-bonus-futuristic-mechanised-twitter-interactive-elements. The article was more experimental to see if the twitter community could get involved directly..it seemed to work ok! We should be experimenting in future with more twitter-interaction goodness.
We received a Holga GTLR through the post today, and figured you might want a brief hands-on mini review in the time being until we get a chance to take some photos (and take some photos of us taking some photos!).
We are also getting a standard plastic-lensed TLR shortly for rigorous testing, so will be running a side-by-side comparison of the two new cameras, to finally answer the question…is the glass lens worth it?
I’ll hopefully have some photos from the GTLR in the next few days, although it’s a completely standard Holga inside, so expect the expected picture-wise!
Excuse the crappy photos, I never got round to getting a DSLR!
It’s not often Holgablog features any digital. We don’t have anything against it, but there’s hundreds of digital sites out there. What we do like, however, is LEGO! The Danish building blocks were a staple of most people’s childhood and are still going strong today.
I think if we had half a chance, we would all still play with lego on a regular basis.
Enter Mike Stimpson, AKA Balakov, AKA that guy that creates amazing Lego scenes and photographs them. Mike spends hours recreating famous photographs, famous events in history or original scenes, using lego, and photographs them. Some are hilarious, some are poignant, all are fantastic.
I caught up with Mike for a quick interview, and a showcase of his most famous series: Classics in Lego
The Olympus Trip 35 is a certified classic. Over 10 million sold, relatively cheap to buy 2nd hand(I got mine for £5/$10 on ebay), and with a absolutely cracking lens, you just can’t lose.
It’s WORLD PINHOLE DAY 2009…yay!
This guide is a bit late, but it may serve you well in future. I’ve taken one of my old (broken) Holgas and turned it into a pinhole. Here’s how to do it:
In the runup to WPD2009, we are churning out pinhole articles! Our latest is a strange one. You all know you can create a pinhole camera pretty much out of anything you can get your hands on, from tin cans, through to wooden boxes. This article lists some of the strangest, most bizarre, funniest, or beautiful pinhole cameras that people have made.
Once a year the fantastic people at http://www.pinholeday.org/ organise WPD. A day to celebrate, learn, and use pinhole cameras. If you check out their events page you will see there are many events be held around the world, ranging from exhibitions to classes on how to make pinholes.
Back in the day, when things were simple, we had one Holga camera: The Holga 120S. But since then, the range of Holga cameras have increased dramatically, ranging from bizarre Hello Kitty branded point and shoot cameras to even bizarrer stereo 3d cameras.
As Holga are releasing more and more products, especially since their rebrand/relaunch as Holga Inspire, we thought it would be time to take a look through the Holga catalogue, examining exactly what holga products you can buy these days.
I enjoy doing night shots, I’m by no means great at it, but it’s fun to go out and discover how differently places look at night. Sometimes it works out well, sometimes not so great.
So, you have been around Flickr for a while, uploading some great shots, but no-one is viewing/commenting/appreciating your work…what gives?
Unfortunately, with over 2 billion (view the rather anticlimatic 2 billionth here ) photos on Flickr, if you want some exposure you need to court it. Like most things in life: Flickr is one giant circle-jerk.
Below are 10 top tips on how to get your photos noticed:
Holga: Plastic or Glass. The Shootout
Plastic or Glass, Plastic or Glass, it’s that age-old question. In fact, since we started holgablog I’ve been emailed 4 times about it(wow! a whole 4 times!), we got twittered about it last night, and there must have been at least 20 discussions about it on Flickr. It’s a burning question no doubt (although maybe not up there with “how do they make Maltesers?”. Really now…how do they make them?).
This test was carried out between two new Holga TLR model cameras: The Holga TLR and the Holga GTLR, with the ‘G’ being the glass lensed model. All but one were taken on the beautiful Isle of Skye, in Scotland. I used a Ilford HP5+ (ISO 400) due to the changeable conditions, even in the height of summer (this is Scotland afterall!). I didn’t take my tripod, so the TLR’s were the Holgas-of-choice due to their viewfinder, enabling me to pretty much line of the same shot. This means the shots aren’t completely the same (fair test=FAIL), but it might give you a rough idea. I will re-do the test with a tripod at some point.
The results were developed and then scanned at 1200DPI into TIFF format (if anyone cares!).
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