The Holga is a cheap medium format film camera that has achieved cult status for its inconsistent, truly unique photographs featuring blur, light leaks, vignetting, and distortion. Poor quality digital photos aren’t nearly as interesting and [Joachim Guanzon] wanted to achieve the Holga effect without using robotic Photoshop filters. He constructed this lens for his Canon 20D. The base is an EOS body cap with the center drilled out. A tube is constructed from a white film canister and the Holga lens is mounted inside. The tube length increases the usable distance of the camera and the white body lets some light leak in. A lens cap with a 3/16th inch hole is snapped over the top. The hole creates a vignette and since it isn’t permanently attached the pattern will be more random. Check out Joachim’s sample photos.
I will KILL the one who writes first post!
You just did :P
OMGFIRSTPOST!$!%!@
Seriously, though. I’ve noticed that a huge, huge number of these camera hacks are for Canons. Personally, I’m more of a Nikon guy. But I wonder what it is about Canons that attracts people who like to hack their cameras.
Very Cool… Check out http://www.lensbabies.com/ for a commercial version.
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maybe i’m committing camera-junkie blasphemy by saying this, but honestly these photos simply look bad. and not bad in a good way, just asthetically unpleasing. i don’t know why anyone would go out of their way to make a decent camera take pictures like this, or why they would think taking a picture of a mailbox exonerates them in the least.
I agree that these pictures just look bad–it would be more sensible to just photoshop the images after taking good originals.
Oddly, original Helga photography does have a great lo-fi feel to it–
http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&lr=&q=+site:primates.ximian.com+holga
If you like the feel of these images, check out this music video–
http://www.warprecords.com/dayvancowboy/
Awesome, no?
i agree with last two posts above.
it still dont have holga effect feel. myself i have holga and i wouldn’t do this hack. i will rather buy 120 films and use holga instead.
but good idea tho.
@7: awesome? yes.
Digital photos are naturally different than film, so obviously the lens is going to be the only connection to the Holga “look”. Those photos do not necessarily do it justice, though if you take the photos and utilize some decent filters, or Alien Skin Exposure, you can conjure up some pretty close to film style images. Also, it can just be a different and fun change from using high quality lenses…