Should I get Holga 135 or 135BC?

Question

I've been looking at the cameras for a while and I cannot decide if I want a regular 35mm or the one with added black corners. I love the black corner effects, but I'm not so sure if I want black corners in all of my pictures.

I'm really new to photography and so I don't really know what I'm doing. I just want to have some fun with the camera, that's for sure.

Side question (may sound stupid), but is there another way to get the black corners in my pictures without it being forced on by the camera? Some fancy camera trick/advice?

Thanks.

Answer 1

The black corners are commonly referred to as vignetting (vin-yet-ing*) in photography, and while they're typically considered an optical flaw,  it can be really enjoyable when used correctly. All lenses have an image circle, and this is basically the size of the picture that the lens projects onto the film. Small format cameras such as 35mm have lenses with a small image circle because the film is small; medium format cameras have lenses with a much larger image circle to accomodate the larger 6cmx6cm film. To my knowledge, the vignetting in a traditional Holga is from the lens circle being too small for the medium format frame, meaning that some areas (corners) of the pictures get very little or not light, resulting in vignetting. The lens for the Holga 135 doesn't have this problem, as the film is smaller so the image circle covers the entire frame, thus yielding no vignetting. To get vignetting on the 135BC, there's an small insert in the camera that basically blocks the edges of the image circle from reaching the edges of the film, forcing vignetting. To otherwise get this vignetting, I'm sure you could take a bit of black cardboard, cut a hole in it slightly smaller than the front of the lens, and then glue it to the front of the lens. With this method, you should be able to adjust the vignetting on the lens as you so desire by adjusting the diameter of the hole in the cardboard.

*Not trying to be condescending by giving the pronounciation, it just took me years to find out that I'd been pronoucing it wrong.

Answer 2

The vignetted corners are simple enough to add in the darkroom, or in post processing if you have scanned your film. In Photoshop, make an elliptical selection, invert the selection and then darken the corners with a curves or levels adjustment.

If you are going for "straight" photographs, the Holga 135 may not be the best choice. Even without the vignetting, the focus will be definitely on the soft side.

If you get the Holga 135BC, you might also consider picking up an Olympus XA-2 to go with it, which is a nice small clamshell 35mm film camera that can take really nice "sharp" photos.