Anyone who knows my work well knows I love toy cameras, in particular my 35mm, purple, glow-in-the-dark Holga. This camera, along with my Polaroid 660, aided in the creation of a majority of my senior work, including my entire BFA show, and, even though I have not used it since then, it still holds a special place in my heart and a special place on my toy camera display shelf. A couple weeks ago, while looking for a new SD card to replace on of mine that had failed, I saw that the Holga HL-N lens was on sale on B&H’s website for $12. I have been eyeing this lens for a while, and figured that now was the time to finally buy it and give it a test.
First, let’s talk briefly about the lens itself:
It’s plastic.
Yep… plastic
In fact, the only part of the lens that is not plastic are the two microscopically-thin metal sheets inside the lens that produce the vignette you see on Holga images. This lens is basically a glorified air-hockey puck, and it weighs about as much as one, too. It advertises itself as being a 60mm f/8 lens, as is the Holga standard, but I would argue that the depth-of-field on this camera is more in the f/18-25 range (this varies from lens-to-lens, because, well, it’s plastic, and no two lenses are going to be exactly the same — it comes with the territory). I would argue that this helps the lens more than it hurts it, though, because it is near-impossible to get anything in focus with the lens as is — I can’t imagine how blurry everything would be if the aperture was actually f/8. It also has a focal range of “single person” person (so, up-close) to “mountains” (so, far away), but I find that this “range” means little to nothing, as setting a different focal length does not make the image more/less “in-focus,” and is hardly worth taking the time to talk about. I set mine to “single person” and left it there.
Meaningless ranges are meaningless
Another thing about this lens is that, due to the high/slow aperture, you have to keep your ISO speeds pretty high and your shutter speeds pretty low to compensate for the lower amount of light being let in. I did find that, in bright light, I could get away with an ISO of 400 and a shutter speed of 1/80, but, in most cases, I was shooting upwards of ISO 1250 with a shutter speed of 1/60, and in some cases I had to go up to ISO 1600 or down to a shutter speed of 1/50 (which is the lowest shutter speed I can shoot at without needing to bring in a tripod for stabilization).
The last I want to say here is that it is extremely difficult to see what you are doing through the viewfinder. The view through the viewfinder is dark, and, much like with a Holga film camera, you are forced to guess at what you are doing. The element of surprise is not lost with this lens, in spite of the camera being digital instead of film, and I can get on board with this. It makes using it that much more fun, especially for those of us who already have experience with toy cameras.
Now that we’ve talked about the lens, here are some of the images I shot:
Behind the Mask
Flight
Winter Winds
Shut-Out
Nineteen-Seventy-Nine
Finally, here are my thoughts on the Holga HL-N (HL-C if you are a Canon user) lens:
The experience of shooting with this lens is not too different from the experience of shooting with an actual Holga camera; it performs poorly in low-light situations, you have to use a high ISO speed and keep the shutter speed around 1/60, and you still have to do a bit of post-development finagling to get your images to turn out the way you want them to. This is not a bad thing. It is, in fact, the reason I love toy cameras in the first place — you never know what you’re going to get until you’ve finished.
What surprised me most when I sat down to edit these photos is just how similar to my old film images they look. Sure, it isn’t exactly the same, but the fact that it is even similar is pretty crazy to me.
Must be something about the plastic, y’know?
…
Anyway, all-in-all, I absolutely adore this quirky little lens. For $12, this lens is worth picking up and playing with. In my case, it has earned a place in my regular lens rotation, for when I want to have that much more fun with my work. If you are interested in purchasing this lens, here is the link to the Nikon-compatible version, and here is the link to the Canon-compatible version.
As always, thank you so much for reading, and, if you have any questions or suggestions for future blog posts, don’t hesitate to reach out by commenting or by emailing me via the “contact” link at the top of the page.
Talk to you again soon!