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The Bestist or the Worstist Holga?
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Looking at Holga photos by people like Martin or Pallotron you’d often wonder at the level of detail and the reasonably decent image quality.
However… my Holga gives me pure muck about 90% of the time… a detail only becomes detail when the imaqe is squished down to 500px on the long side. Any larger and they’re just a mass of noisy speckles.
So I’m wondering does this make my Holga the bestist or the worstist? Is it a case of the grungier the better?
A few from a spin out yesterday… with another roll drying as I type –
You’d have to show us a sample from the middle-
I don’t use a Holga, but I have used one-
and the quality was good-I have been promised a Holga lens (Sharon?)
so can’t wait to try it-
however, they do seem to vignette more than the crappy lenses I’m used to.I wonder if this is a mechanical thing, if something is getting in the way?
Time will tell-These would be nice, if the centre was sharp-
but if it’s not, then you might need to get one with a better lens-
I think they need to be able to stand up to scrutiny when they’re enlarged…I think you should organize a Lo-Fi print exchange,
that way you’d be able to make a comparison…At this scale I’d say they looked fine but you know bestest. I was wondering the same yesterday when I saw Martins stuff…it’s too good quality for a Holga…if that’s what you’re after?
Maybe it’s the scanning technique or workflow. I was using the basic software with my scanner yesterday to scan film from the pinhole and the GS-1 and I was very, very disappointed. I then used Silverfast and it improved things but I haven’t run through them all yet to show the difference. Maybe this has a part to play in the final, presented image?Alan.
They dont look to bad to me.
I think all holgas are different though, it might be just your holga or else how your deving the film or the light your shooting in
I normally only shoot in bright sun. When deving the film I dev it for ISO250. So if I am using ISO 100 film I push it to 250 or if im using ISO 400 film I pull it to 250… If shooting in dull weather you need to dev the film differently again but for best results I shoot in bright light
Scanning wise im using an Epson V700 which is fairly good. I dont do much processing on them, just create a slight S shaped curve and tone them, that way I know they will not look to different from what the darkroom print might look like…. Note: most people on the web do do allot of processing on their holga shots in PS and end up with a picture very different to whats on the neg. You really need to see darkroom printed Holga negs to see what the Holgas characteristics are and if its up to the job
I can borrow you holga if you want and put a role through it and see if its just that im just naturally brilliant :wink:
M
could be the scanning is right!
I have the V500 and the film holders supplied with it are . . . Sh1t with a capital E at the end!
I recently took delivery of a ‘better scanning’ holder with ANR glass and straight off there is an
improvement in quality particularly sharpness.I scan at a resolution of 2400 and when viewed in PS the images are massive, so massive
you wouldnt really print them that big.with most of me negs I do very little photoshopperizing also, curves or contrast boost . . .
bit of sharpening and thats it.As an aside the first batch of images I got from the yashica D were great. they were on Tmax 100
and I had to do very litt,e with them in the end, I mostly use expired film in the Holga and Balda
so if you are using the same the film might not stabd up straigh off . . . no scientific basis behind that
just a thought.did someone say once on here that the glass lens holgas were not as good as the plastic jobbies?
When deving the film I dev it for ISO250. So if I am using ISO 100 film I push it to 250 or if im using ISO 400 film I pull it to 250
Going by the Ilford spec sheets for Delta 400 the times for Rodinal are 9mins, and 6mins for ISO100. So 250 would be 7 mins (all other factors being equal)?
Alan.
nfl, the truth is i’ve asked a witch to make a spell on my holga :D
personally all the shots i’ve taken so far have been developed by a lab, so i’ve never done any development “trick”.
i’ve only scanned them and usually i just use dust removal + white balance and some leveling/curve adjustment in gimp.i think i will develop my first holga roll ever next week when i will take the last 2 pics on the roll currently loaded.
btw what martin says is actually correct, my (all?) holga performs very shitty during cloudy days, even with the a iso 400 roll…
for example the pic below was taken during the snow week in dublin, pretty cloudy, i think all that noise is due to the scanner trying to compensate the poor exposition, negative was *really* underexposed:irishwonkafan wrote:
Going by the Ilford spec sheets for Delta 400 the times for Rodinal are 9mins, and 6mins for ISO100. So 250 would be 7 mins (all other factors being equal)?
Alan.Presume your talking about 1:25, if so then the massive dev chart says 7.5 minutes. All Holgas are slightly different but I reckon iso250 would be a great start and possibly correct. Remember its only iso 250 in strong light, in dull light you need to compensate, you might need to push the film to say iso800…
I always use Rodinal at 1:50, less grain and contrast I find
M
nfl, out of interest what film/dev combination were you using ?
They do look well fine at that size. Of course as you mention anything larger they can look very different.Just asking as I tried some HP5+ with Rodinal(twice as I had a longer dev time for the 1st roll) – omg what grain I got.
Not to be recommended at any temp/dilution combo :) regardless of the light.In my experience scanning can add its own ‘noise’ to the photo.
Hi John,
These make good viewing to my eyes.
A couple of them are taken within a few yards of my birthplace.
I suppose that contributes to my enjoyment of them.The thread itself makes interesting reading too.
John.
Greetings Gringos and thanks for the replies.
These were shot on Kodak TMax 400. I did take a light reading at one point and whilst I can’t recall the exact prescribed shutter speed it was definetly a lot fast than Holga’s 1/60th F8… at least 2,3 maybe even 4 stops. I think it might be the case that I do need to develop these IS0 250.
That being said I developed another roll from Tacumshane Windmill yesterday and the result were better. The light may have been more subdued here though as there is a large tree to the right of the windmill that blocks some of the light. The boat above was taken in more subdued light and the results were a tad better.
Then there’s the the Holga guess focus system… it seems to go astray for me when I choose between large group photo and mountain.
Martin – I’ll give you a shout, maybe Thursday and you can take nfl-olga for a spin.
Thanks again everyone.
The 2nd roll did turn out a lot better… the only thing I did different was dev it at 1:25 as opposed to 1:50 on the previous roll.
Think the light might have been a factor –
Nicely framed-
Hope you’re keeping some of these for wet printing-
Uncle Martin would agree, I’m sure-I like that one…it really suits the falloff in focus.
Pity monitors weren’t square coz you could have this as a desktop wallpaper.
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