The Holga is a medium format 120 film camera, made in Hong Kong, known for its low-fidelity aesthetic.
Overview | |
---|---|
Maker | Various |
Type | Box camera |
Released | 1982 |
Lens | |
Lens | 60 mm plastic meniscus |
F-numbers | f/8.0, f/11.0 (actual f/13) |
Sensor/medium | |
Film format | 120 |
Film size | 56 mm × 56 mm (6x4.5 cm or 6x6 cm film format) |
Recording medium | 120 film |
Focusing | |
Focus | Manual zone (four settings) |
Shutter | |
Shutter speeds | 1/100 or 1/125, Bulb |
The Holga's low-cost construction and simple meniscus lens often yields pictures that display vignetting, blur, light leaks and other distortions. The camera's limitations have brought it a cult following among some photographers, and Holga photos have won awards and competitions in art and news photography. As of July 2017, the camera is in production after being unavailable for two years.
The Holga camera was designed by Lee Ting-mo in 1982. It first appeared in 1982 in British Hong Kong. At the time, 120 roll film in black-and-white was the most widely available film in neighbouring China. The Holga was intended to provide an inexpensive mass-market camera for the Chinese working class in order to record family portraits and events. However, the rapid adoption of the 35mm film format, due to new foreign camera and film imports, virtually eliminated the consumer market for 120 roll film in China. Seeking new markets, the manufacturer sought to distribute the Holga outside mainland China.
Within a few years after the Holga's introduction to foreign markets, some photographers began using the Holga for its surrealistic, impressionistic renderings of landscape, still life, portrait and especially street photography. These owners prized the Holga for its lack of precision, light leaks and inexpensive qualities, which enabled the photographer to concentrate on innovation and creative vision in place of increasingly expensive camera technology. In this respect, the Holga became the successor to the Diana and other toy cameras previously used in such work. A Holga photograph by photojournalist David Burnett of former vice-president Al Gore during a 2000 campaign appearance earned a top prize in a 2001 White House News Photographers' Association Eyes of History award ceremony.
Recently, the Holga has experienced renewed consumer interest outside China due to the increasing popularity of toy cameras and a continuing counterculture response to the increasing complexity of modern cameras.
In late November 2015, Freestyle Photographic Supplies COO Gerald H. Karmele confirmed that Tokina had shut down the factory that produced Holga cameras and related accessories, ending the production of these toy cameras. A revitalized, but saturated, toy camera market led to waning sales. However, as of July 2017, Freestyle reported that the moulds had been tracked down, put back into production, and the Holgas were to be available once again.
Most Holga cameras use a single-piece plastic meniscus lens with a focal length of 60 millimeters and utilize a zone-focus system that can adjust from about 1 meter (3 feet) to infinity. Like any simple meniscus lens, the Holga lens exhibits soft focus and chromatic aberration. Other Holga variants, denoted either by the letter 'G' in their model name, or the name WOCA, feature a simple glass lens, but are otherwise identical in construction. The manufacturer has since outsourced supply of the varying plastic and glass lenses to contractors in Japan and China
There is an aperture setting switch on the camera with two positions indicated by pictorial ideograms: sunny and cloudy, with a nominal value of f/11 and f/8, respectively. Due to a manufacturing oversight, this switch has no effect on pre-2009 production cameras, and the actual aperture is around f/13, giving the Holga just one aperture. The problem is reported as having been fixed in cameras post-2009, providing two working aperture settings of f/13 and f/20, and earlier cameras are modifiable to provide two usable settings. Apertures of f/10 and f/13 work well for ISO200 speed films, while settings of f/13 and f/19 tend to suit faster films of around ISO400.
The Holga was originally designed to accept either a 6×4.5 format or a 6×6 (square) format. However, once the camera went into production, vignetting (darkening of the corners of the finished photograph) occurred when the camera was modified to a 6×6 format. Hence, early Holgas had their film size switches tightly fixed to shoot only 6×4.5 format. Many owners removed both this restriction and the 6×4.5 film mask as well, finding the resultant vignetting a desirable effect. Later Holgas such as the 120N come with two masks for both the 6×4.5 and 6×6 format. Holgas can even be modified to use 35 mm film.
The Holga has one shutter speed – approximately 1/100th of a second. The camera can shoot 16 exposures per 120 roll in 6x4.5 cm format or 12 exposures in 6x6 format. Film is advanced by a knob on the top of the camera, and frame numbers printed on the backing paper of the film can be viewed through a red window on the back of the Holga. The number of frames chosen is indicated by the black arrow.
Holga cameras are often modified:
Some modifications permit the use of other film formats:
In 2010, designer Saikat Biswas proposed a concept for a digital version of the Holga camera, called Holga D. It has a modernized case, but retains the simplicity of the original camera. However, there is no evidence of current plans to produce this device, or produce any other digital version.
On 27 August 2015, a Kickstarter campaign was launched to fund the creation of a digital camera styled after a Holga 120, called the Holga Digital. This model includes a glass optic with f/2.8 and f/8 aperture settings and a sliding switch that alternates between black and white and color mode. It has a low-noise CMOS color sensor with an 8-megapixel resolution. The camera does not have a means of viewing the pictures saved to its SD Card.
There are also available Holga lenses for digital cameras.
Accessories exist that will do the same thing as a modified Holga without the need for physical modifications as well as accessories for special effects. Such accessories include:
Holga Week is observed in the first week of September, every year. Holga cameras are also celebrated on World Toy Camera Day, which is celebrated every year on October 20.
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