The First Day of Spring & Holga Lenses

I know spring is coming every year when the tulips and crocuses start pushing up – often with snow still around the yard.  I usually get the camera out and photograph these first signs.

This year the snow has been gone for quite a while and I almost neglected to look in back where the crocuses usually bloom.  Fortunately, I didn’t miss them!

Nikon D700, Holga HL-N lens, ISO 800, 1/10th of a second.

This year, I decided to do something a little different.  If you’ve seen some of my other photos, you know I sometimes like to play with different camera effects in Photoshop and Lightroom.  This time, I thought I’d shoot with a Holga lens.

If you aren’t familiar with Holga, it is a medium format 120 film “toy” camera manufactured in China.  Because these cameras are built very inexpensively, they generally has some optical aberrations due to the limitations of these cheap lenses.  Makes for some really interesting and artistic results through vignettes, light leaks and blurring.

I wanted to play with cameras like these for a while.  I was fortunate enough to find that I could purchase Holga lenses that would mount to my Nikon D700 DSLR camera.  Sort of really “dumbing” down this expensive camera!   I bought these from http://www.holgadirect.com/

Below is a photo of the main lens and the close-up lenses that I used to achieve this.  Shot this with the 120mm close-up from about four inches away from the flowers.  The close-up lens snaps right on the top of the Holga lens – low tech, but simple to use.

The back of the Holga lens is pretty much just like a pinhole camera, so it is a little hard to compose the image through the viewfinder as very little light is coming in through the lens.  Lots of trial and error, but I love the end result.

Hope to shoot more over the course of the summer!

Holga Photography from a Nikon D700

 

If you’ve read my posts in the past, you know I have an appreciation for “toy camera” photography.  I’ve seriously considered buying a Holga or a Lomo camera in the past, but I couldn’t really justify buying that and purchasing and developing the film. 

However, I found a way to perhaps get the best of both worlds!

I bought a set of Holga lenses for my Nikon digital cameras. Sort of bizarre to be dumbing down these really expensive cameras, but I do love Holga photography. I haven't had more than a minute to play yet, but I shot a quick photo outside the door. Hard to see through the viewfinder as it is so dark, but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it.

I bought the Holga lenses here (the kitchen sink option): http://shop.holgadirect.com/collections/digital-holga-for-nikon-slr

I wasn't sure I much liked this first image, but then I remembered that a lot of Holga photography is cross processed. A couple of quick steps in Lightroom and I like the end result a lot better.

Here they are side by side. The cross processed photo is on the right.

Hope to share more in the coming weeks!

OTA Sessions, the Orpheum Theater in Sioux Falls and a new Nikon

Where to start!?

I had the extreme pleasure of doing event photography for the OTA Sessions in Sioux Falls on Friday.  The OTA sessions are described as:

Creativity and originality of thought are critical to our success as a region, but without action and implementation it's all just idle chitchat. OTA challenges us to bring originality and action together. o + a

The OTA Sessions are a chance for all of us Midwesterners to shatter the perception that creativity and thought leadership in business, marketing, communications and education live solely on the east and west coasts.

I was blown away by the speakers:  Sally Hogshead, Ellen McGirt, CC Chapman, Ann Handley, John Winsor, Ricardo Crespo, Rod Arnold, Jeff Slobotsky and Dusty Davidson.

All were very motivating and a pleasure to listen to.   Sally Hogshead had me cracking up (while trying to be steady and focus), John motivated the heck out of me and Ellen and Rod moved me immensely.  I was torn in some ways as I couldn’t be both focused on the presentations and focused with my camera.  I was there to take photographs!

Working with Hugh Weber, the founder of OTA was fantastic.  He’s put together a fantastic event and I really identified with his motivations for creating this event.

The venue for the OTA Sessions was the Orpheum Theater in Sioux Falls.  What a fantastic place!  I was so excited as soon as I got a look at it. 

My plans for PJ Anderson Photography this year called for a new camera so that I had a solid backup for the spring/summer weddings.  I also wanted to get up to the next level of pro cameras.  As great as my workhorse Nikon D300 has been for years, I was more than ready to get up onto the Nikon D700.   With the OTA event being held at the Orpheum, I knew I wanted to get the D700 in my hands immediately - to make sure that I could take advantage of the great high ISO results.  I wanted to be able to walk away with photos that weren’t overly grainy in the dark light of a theater.

The D700 did NOT let me down.  I am very pleased with the quality of the images!  This is going to open up even more opportunities at weddings in darker churches.  Should allow for some wonderful moody lighting situations!

I’m in the middle of editing/finishing four assignments, but while taking a break – I tossed together 7 or 8 photos in Photoshop that I shot “hand held” in the Orpheum to create an interesting panorama. This photograph is in no way to be considered a “finished” product.  If I was going to shoot this in a serious fashion, I would have definitely set this up on a tripod and would have spent some serious time getting the shot down perfectly.  I might have even took some time to try an HDR study. BUT, I do think this shows the power of the camera (and the beauty of the theater.)  So, just for fun, here you go!

Nikon D700, ISO 2000, f/2.8, 1/60 second – multiple exposures stitched in Photoshop