Circular Polarizer and more Holga HL-C

A couple of days ago there were some nice clouds which have been rare this summer. To make the clouds stand out more I used a circular polarizing filter. 




















If you don't know about polarizing filters The Luminous Landscape has a good section about polarizing filters.  If you do much landscape photography a polarizing filter is very helpful.

Here along with helping with the clouds I think the polarizer also helps with the color saturation. 












In the post on Tuesday  I forgot to mention that most of the time I use the fish-eye attachment with the Holga HL-C when using a camera that is not full-frame. With the smaller sensor there is no fish-eye effect, however there is an amount of distortion that I like. 

An example of using the fish-eye attachment with an APS sensor.













That's all for today. 

Holga Lens for Canon Digital in Downtown Champaign Illinois

I don't have any kind of ideological preference for film or digital. I think both have their place in image-making. I do think it is unfortunate that many photographers do have some prejudices or just a lack of curiosity that inhibits their range of image-making tools. Myself I like going using both film and digital.  I also like using different lenses even if they are cheap plastic ones. Many times I have been happily surprised by such exploration.

Yesterday was the kind of bright sunny day that the Holga lens for Canon does well with. If you haven't heard of this lens I wrote about it here.

Radio Maria is a restaurant in downtown Champaign.  The name is my current favorite local restaurant name.

Photomatix has an option to make a HDR image from a single raw file.  Here I used that to add some pop to the Holga HL-C image.  The seating is for the Blind Pig in downtown Champaign.  The building in the background is the Champaign City Building.

Sometimes a digital image doesn't need color.  I used Topaz BW Effects to convert this image.






















Overall I was pleased with how things came out with using the Holga HL-C.  The time of day when I took these images is one where the light is still fairly harsh around here.  I think the Holga HL-C softened and diffused the light well.
Holga HL-C in Champaign Illinois Gallery

Holga lens for digital cameras.

The Holga is a cheap plastic film camera that has been made in China since the early 1980's.  The Holga is valued for the dreamy, and somewhat unpredictable images it makes. I have a film Holga and do enjoy using it.  So when I saw that there was an inexpensive Holga lens availiable for Canon digital I had to try it out.

The Holga HL-C is a Holga lens with an adapter for mounting it on your Canon digital camera.                                           
                                                     

The lens is the same as the film Holga with the exception of the aperture. The aperture on Holga HL-C is made of one center hole surrounded by a ring as smaller holes.

Not the best image, however this is what the aperture looks like.












The ring of holes is there to produce vignetting. The vignetting effect is supposed to work best with a fullframe sensor.  With the APS-C sensor that I use vignetting is inconsistent.  Still even with the APS sensor the Holga HL-C does produce increased softness to the edges and gives images an often lovely diffused glow.

I think the main issue with the Holga HL-C is that due to the small aperture it is difficult to see much through the viewfinder.  I do believe that the effective aperture for this lens is much smaller than f8.  I usually need to use an ISO of 800 even in fairly bright light to get an effective hand-held shutter speed.  Still with practice it is possible to get some nice images with this lens.  One time when I very much like to use this lens is when there is harsh sunlight of the type that we get here in Illinois at mid-day.  The Holga HL-C is effective in diffusing the harsh sunlight and giving a soft glow to bright light.

In actual practice I use the Holga HL-C most often with a fish-eye attachment that I had for use with the film Holga.  Due to the smaller sensor size there is no fish-eye effect, however there is a slight curvature that I like.  Also the wider angle increases vignetting. 

The main thing that I miss with the Holga HL-C when compared to the film Holga is the square format of the film Holga.  However I tend to think that it might be most useful to not compare the two and to learn to use the Holga HL-C as a thing of its own and not as a digital subsitute for a Holga. The Holga HL-C for Canon is usually sold for between $25 and $30. I believe I got mine from HolgaDirect. There also are versions of the Holga lens for Nikon, Pentax and Sony.

Most of the images in the first gallery were taken with the fish-eye attachment.

Holga HL-C Image Gallery

My Flickr set for this lens.
Holga HL-C Set