vendredi 22 octobre 2004

From Hasselblad to Holga... Or, the Sublime to the Ridiculous Buy a new Hasselblad with a 22 megapixel digital back and you're talking $25K... buy a new Holga and you're out of pocket $25 plus mailing. The latter is very serious fun... the former just ever so serious. Climbing down from the dizzy heights of a digitally equipped Hasselblad it's probably fair to say that one fitted with a film-back can be bought for $2500 or thereabouts. In this configuration both cameras use 120 roll-film, available in various makes, types, emulsions and speeds. 120 roll-film is (by 2006... was!) the bread-and-butter format of the professional photographer who wants quality images. With a Swedish Hasselblad you have the choice of a superb range of high-quality German Zeiss multicoated optics ranging from 30mm fisheye to 500mm telephoto - or Fuji lenses for the newer Japanese built 645 format system - whilst with a Chinese Holga you have an uncoated lens probably little better than a plastic toy magnifying glass, of 60mm focal length or thereabouts, an optimistic maximum aperture of f/8 and made up of an unknown (to me) number of elements... I doubt if it's one, may be two, could be three! The reputation of the comprehensive Hasselblad system is understandably legendary... but surprisingly the Holga has rapidly grown in popularity and stature with certain photographers and aficionados, poseurs and weirdoes who use the camera's quirks and jerks to create art. In fact I get the feeling that every shot taken with a Holga becomes art of some form or another judging by the number of internet sites displaying such results... type "Holga" and "Gallery" into Google over 21,000 sites come up! An interesting example is Holga Mods which has over many pages of excellent Holga images from users around the world. I'd better explain what I meant by the camera's "quirks" in the previous paragraph. Quirks include light leaks onto the film from a poor fitting back... vignetting from an over-stretched lens... and soft images from, well, I did say that the lens was over-stretched. You can't do anything about the lens but you are advised to use adhesive tape to make the join good (or better) between the body and removable back. Samples understandably vary given the cheap quality and lack of control of it... so a number of photographers buy them in bulk. One of the best places to buy from (after all they wrote the instructions which come with the camera) is The Photographic Resource in Maine... (in 2004 the deal was $20 if ordering one, $17 each if ordering from 2~5 or $15 each camera if ordering 6~31 and so on. However, at the time of this Nov. 2006 update the unit price is $25 and I see no discounts being offered on their website). You pay your money and you take your pick. It's quite likely though that none get thrown away for being too quirky... simply that the better samples are used for more exacting jobs. Some guys and gals are selling their Holga images for several hundreds of dollars and the crap cameras get used for the personal stuff... find a really horrible example and it may be just great for shooting into the sun (lots of wonderfully artistic flare all other lens makers try to guard against) and nothing else. Pro Hasselblad customers sometimes find a dealer who will let them try a selection of matching lenses to find the one they think has a bit more edge... serious Holga purchasers buy a selection unseen to go to the other extreme! Seriously though, serious pro Holga users are known to shoot images for corporate brochures for Fortune 500 companies with these plastic toys... and they probably charge more too! I use my Holga for multiple-exposure effects... sometimes I think the wind-on knob (which makes staccato plinking sounds when turned) is going to break off it's spindle inside... so I keep exposing on the same frame of film. The image above of today's blog is such an example of the church next to my house... I think I exposed the same frame six times... but it hardly matters whether it was an exposure or two more or less. The Hasselblad can also be used for multiple-exposures either via a dedicated switch (later models) or by removing the film back between re-cocking the shutter (older models). However, the comparison I've chosen is to show a strip of three negatives printed as one image... I guess it's still a multi-exposure. Ordinarily it may not be apparent to casual onlookers which camera was used for which image... but the aficionado will know that the Holga was used for the church (look at the seriously interesting vignetting... wow!) and the Hasselblad was used for the London NatWest Tower image (note the excellent frame spacing which doesn't happen with many Holgas). The refinements on Holgas include flash sync on the 120S model and built-in flash on the 120SF, distance scales of "Head" (3 feet), ''Two Persons & Child" (9 feet), "Barber's Shop Septet" (15 feet) and "Mountains or Teepee Encampment" (too far away - get closer!). The shutter speed is about 1/100th of a second and two light settings "Sun" (f/11'ish) and "Cloud & Sun" (f/8'ish)... you can jam this slider between stops for unknown effects on image quality if you have film to spare (of course you do) to try it out. There's also an interchangeable insert converting the camera from 6x6 cms to 6x4.5 cms formats. I'm sure you'll be seeing more of my Holga images throughout the coming years so on a not-so-final-note... it's cool to form a rapport with a Holga... if you squeeze one gently it squeaks back at you! PS : I've had my Holga for well over ten years and threw the Instruction Sheet with the box when I bought it... now I read on a web-site that after removing the 6x4.5 insert (also lost) the holes revealed should be blocked off with black tape... I'll try it although I may regret it... any improvement could ruin the "art" in my images! 9:24:24 PM    comment []