BetterPhoto Q&A
Category: New Answers

Holga?

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January 15, 2007

Hope this helps!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Holga 120 GCFNThe Holga is a very inexpensive, medium format box camera appreciated for its low-fidelity aesthetic. The Holga originated in Hong Kong in 1982, and used 120 film, the most widely available film in China at that time. The camera was originally intended to provide an inexpensive mass-market camera for working-class Chinese in order to record family portraits and events. The Holga's cheap construction, combined with poor quality materials and simple meniscus lens often yields pictures that display vignetting, blur, light leaks, and other distortions. The often bizarre photographic results of these effects have ironically popularized the camera with an international audience, and Holga photos have won numerous awards and competitions in art and news photography.

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January 15, 2007

With regard to your eye problem:

Optical viewfinders and SLR viewfinders are generally designed for a person with normal vision. That is, one who sees reasonably well without wearing corrective lenses (glasses). Cameras as well as most other optical instruments are a problem for all who wear glasses. The problem is mainly the inability to get close enough, wearing glasses, to the exit (eyepiece) lens. A tiny extra distance (eye relief), caused by the glasses will reduce the observed field of view.

The solution is to remove one’s glasses when using these instruments. A young person who is just near or far sighted can generally force their eyes to re-focus; this is called accommodation. Persons, who are older and or the young with other conditions like astigmatism, can’t accommodate.

An optician can prepare a corrective lens to mount directly over the eyepiece lens. A few camera manufactures will for a fee, replace the eyepiece lens with another that provides the correction.

If you are a do-it-your-self person, you can go to a drug store and try out different powers of the over-the-counter reading glasses. You can place them directly over your camera eyepiece and by trial-an-error find the appreciate power. This is true only for near or far sighted error. All other errors will require a more complex corrective lens. Should you find a pair that does the trick; an eyeglass shop can cut one down to a small circle that fits over the camera eyepiece. This corrective lens is affixed over the eyepiece using clear silicone glue. This is nice stuff as it comes off at will without leaving a trace.

Alan Marcus
ammarcus@earthlink.net

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January 15, 2007

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January 16, 2007