Take one high-end, medium-format digital camera back, and one plastic-lensed Holga film camera. Cut, stitch, and wait for a thunderstorm. Throw the switch and let the lightning flow into the Frankencam. It’s alive. Alive!
You may wonder why you’d do such a thing, but admit it, you’re intrigued. The trouble with digital photography is that it is so damned predictable. Cameras guess the exposure correctly almost all the time, the images are clean and if you don’t like it, you can try again, immediately.
Sticking a crap-cam onto the front of a high-quality capture device brings some unpredictability and some analog surprises back to photography. It’s the same thing as putting a Lenbaby, the low-fi, bendy lens that lets you send most of your pictures to blur, on the front of a full-frame DSLR: Fun.
And it’s exactly what Ted Dillard did when he hooked a Holga onto an Imacon 96 back. The Imacon was joined to a gutted Holga so that the 36 x 36 mm sensor sat in the film plane and the unit is triggered by a simple connection to the Holga’s hot-shoe. This sensor, although large, is still not as big as 6 x 6 film, so you don’t get the trademark dark edges on the pictures. Ironically, the bigger, better and more expensive the sensor you use, the more “Holga-like” (or “worse”) the pictures get.
If you’re thinking of doing this yourself, stop. The Imacon is impossible to get ahold of, and a new Mamiya digital back goes for well over $3,000. If you already have one, hack away. If not, try a cheaper solution, and just stick a Holga lens on the front of your camera. Flickr user Joachim Guanzon did it already and you’ll find the instructions, along with some great pictures, over at his page.
The Digital Holga How-To [H2H]
EOS Holga [Flickr]
Post a Comment