This is also the first time I am testing out the Fisheye Lens attachment as well as the Holga 120N.
The results were disappointing, to say the least. Greatly underexposed! The cloudy weather definitely played a part and I am not sure if the film quality had anything to do with it. Many of the shots were taken indoors as well, which probably made the shots even worse. I have since sent in a second roll which I am collecting on Monday. We'll see how that goes.
Here're some of the images.
First time I am using the Fisheye Lens, or any fisheye lens for that matter. Takes a lot of getting used to and experimenting I guess.
Once these 5 rolls of 120 film are used up, I'll stick to Kodak Tri-X 400 films for B/W and Kodak Ektachrome E100 for slide films. I must say it's been a long while since I have shot anything on slides, so chances are that the first roll or two would be exercises in understanding the Holga in relation to slide film.
My take on the Shanghai GP3 film was that packaging was poor, being placed inside an extremely flimsy cardboard box and the films themselves wrapped in firecracker looking red paper. On top of that, the film does not seem to spool well, being rather loose when wound. I've had to use rubber bands to tighten up the spools and that's not something I enjoy doing.
Then again this could be caused by the lack of film tensioning sponges in my 120N, as I removed them the moment I got the camera, not wanting to risk having chunks of sponge chewed up by a roll of film midway through a shooting session.
Other modifications I've so far done are:
- Flocking the interior with flat black (not shown)
- Sealing off two holes found at the top of the Holga, which causes light leaks when using the 6 X 6 mask. I've decided that I will stick to the 6 X 6 format for this camera.
- The dreaded Aperture mod.
The Aperture Mod was done as I felt since this was a relatively cheap camera, I would try to do a mod to it to improve the quality of my pictures. I first started by going to a number of sites to find information on the mod, and finally settled on using Squarefrog's Aperture Mod.
I started by removing the shutter assembly and lens from the Holga, and then the washer that determined the Holga's sunny setting aperture.
The darn washer that was the original aperture was so bloody flimsy it got deformed by my ballpoint pen, so I fashioned a new aperture out of a sheet of styrene, which I normally use for my scale modelling.
After supergluing the styrene tab onto the aperture arm, I clamped the 2 surfaces with plastic pegs to let the glue set (super glue dries quite fast) then I am ready to make the aperture.
I've only got a 3mm drill bit, so I used it to create a 3mm in diameter, then used a diamond file to sand it to approximately 5mm, which gives me an aperture of f/12
The original washer gives about f/10 so right now i have two useable apertures, f/10 & f/12, not much I know, but still beats the single aperture I had to deal with previously.
Finally, I airbrushed the new part flat black after filing down the edges and scraping off any excess with a scalpel blade and testing the swing arm movement to ensure the arm swung smoothly when everything else was put together.
Here's the result:
I've started shooting a roll of Fuji slide film using the now flocked interior and modified aperture. I intend to process it normally if possible, just to see the results of my effort.
Coupled with sealing up the two holes above the Holga when using the 6 X 6 mask, gaffering the front area, using the velcro tabs to secure the back plate to the Holga's body, I am hoping that at least I can control the light leaks to some degree and not have them too random.
Other mods that I am planning on would be the film spool tension mod since I have already discarded the two sponges and the Close Focus Mod.
Random thought of the day - It's an exercise in futility trying to score a 6 X 6 pressure plate from an old disused medium format camera.
No comments:
Post a Comment