Author: Dave Wares

Photographer based in the South East of England, UK. http://davewares.co.uk
Blog, Holga, review, Tips

Holga HL-N first outing

Dave Wares

So some of you may remember me mentioning in a previous post that Holga had finally brought out both Nikon and Canon mount versions of their lens. I ordered mine from HolgaDirect as soon as I heard the news, and 10 days later it arrived in the post.

Made of cheap plastic, it looks like it has been fashioned from an old detergent bottle top, but then that’s the charm of the Holga line up and similar Toy camera systems. Once attached to the camera body (rather loosely), operating this lens is quite simple. Depending on your camera you will either have to switch to manual ( as I have to) or if you’re lucky Aperture Priority, which will allow you to use the cameras light meter. Usually the light meter will only work if you’re using either a Canon model or pro spec Nikon bodies. On my camera however the light meter will not work, meaning that I have to sort everything out by taking a couple of test shots and checking the histogram. You could also use a hand held light-meter. Doing a little research on various Holga sites I found that the shutter speed on their film cameras is set to about 1/100th sec with a number of folks using iso 400 film, so I thought that this would be a good place to start, and indeed it was. This is based on taking shots during a normal bright day. At this point it is also a good idea to familiarize yourself with the Sunny 16 rule. Focus is achieved by rotating the lens, which has a range of roughly 3ft to infinity with four symbols depicting various distances in-between.

One thing that differs using a Holga lens on an SLR is that you are actually looking through the lens (an obvious point I know), but this isn’t the case on a traditional Holga as it has a viewfinder separate to the lens, like your old point and shoot. The lens is supposedly a fixed F8 meaning that it is very dark when you’re looking through the viewfinder and can be a bit of a challenge, especially in lower light. I just see this as even more a part of the fun of using this lens.

As of yet I have not had a proper chance to get out and about with it, but I did manage to grab a few minutes during my lunch break to take some test shots to give you a flavour of what this lens produces. As you can see, the traditional Holga trademark look is still there, the only thing you wont get is the light leaks produced by the cheap construction of their film cameras.

All in all this lens is a great compromise for those not wanting to go down the film route, and if soft and heavily vignetted photographs is something that appeals to you then there really is no reason not to get one. It costs around $30US with P&P making this about £18.50ish in my money. Bargain!

Happy Shooting.

Blog, Uncategorized

Dozer Detail

Dave Wares

If you head down to Hastings old town and down onto the beach you will come across Hastings fishing fleet. Comprising around 25 boats Hastings has the largest beach-launched fleet in Britain, with the boats being towed in and out of the water by Bulldozers. There are quite a number of them spread over the site, all looking well used and rather forlorn due to the seawater eating its way through the metalwork.

I managed to grab a few half decent shots on my recent trip with the local camera club, and although it was dark there were plenty of floodlights to work with. However; tripods, remote shutter or cable releases were needed, with many exposures taking up to 60 seconds, as one would expect doing night photography.

The light proved to be too poor to get any shots of the boats that I was happy with, so I’ll have to make a return visit on another occasion when there is still some natural light in the sky. Perhaps a trip early one morning will give me an opportunity to see the fleet in action.

Blog, HDR

The Double Plushie Murder

Dave Wares

Our camera club decided to do a photowalk at Hastings old town last Tuesday night instead of meeting at the hall, though to be honest it was a little too early in the year as the light had already gone so we were just left with  street and flood lights. Though this is not altogether a bad thing, it would’ve been nice to have an hour or so of the last of the evening light to work with, especially as there are a number of beginners in our group. I didn’t get to take as many pictures as I would’ve liked because, as expected, I ended up helping out a couple of others with their cameras; which I am happy to do. It was a pleasant evening that turned into more of a social event, with a nice chat and a pint in the local angling club to wind the evening up.

This shot was taken on the beach where fishing boats, net houses(unique to Hastings), bulldozers and various other fishing paraphernalia can be found. These sorry looking teddies were hanging on the back of one of the dozers.

 

Blog, Events, Mono

Hounds live @ the Coalition

Dave Wares

One of the support acts for ‘Does it Offend You, Yeah‘ at the Coalition in Brighton this past weekend was the Hounds, a modern punk style group with an electronic edge. And can they knock out a banging tune or what! Thoroughly enjoyed their set, albeit short.

Anyhow, I took all the shots using the same settings as described in the previous post so I’ll just let the pictures do the talking. Was really pleased with how they came out, I hope both you and they like them too.

The pics look better if clicked on. And bigger!

Thanks for stopping by.

Blog, Events, Mono, Tips

Does it Offend You Yeah @ Coalition Brighton

Dave Wares

Due to a stroke of luck my wife and I were invited along to see Does it Offend You Yeah at the Brighton Coalition venue this past Sunday. Bass player Chloe (pictured below), used our son for some of their own pictures that are being used on their upcoming CD and asked if we would like to come along and see them in action. We of course jumped at the chance and a chance to use my camera immediately sprung to mind.

Shooting using only the stage lighting was going to be a challenge as essentially I would have to be constantly rearranging my composition and pressing the shutter when the lights were up. As you can imagine this was very hit and miss as a fair number of times I would trip the shutter just as the lighting dropped. There was a fair amount of strobe lighting in their set too which sent my autofocus up the wall.

After doing a bunch of shots of the two support bands (I’ll show in another post) I decided the best srtategy was to set the camera to Manual at ISO800 1/60thsec at f2.8, I found that this seemed to give a good balance between exposure and keeping motion blur to a minimum. Pretty much all the shots I did that evening were on this setting, allowing me to concentrate on capturing the moment.

Shooting with a higher ISO meant I would get a fair amount of noise and with this in mind I knew black and white was a good way to go to use the noise to my advantage; I’ve always had a soft spot for grainy back and white photos. 🙂

Just a hint of colour in the shot of frontman James (above) using the Coldtone preset in Lightroom to accentuate the mood of the moment captured.

These are just a few of my favourites from the evening, hope you enjoyed them. Just a couple more below with one being colour for good measure.

Thanks for viewing. 🙂

Blog, HDR, Urbex

Art Alley

Dave Wares

‘Art Alley’ HDR 3exp +/-2EV ISO200 Sigma18-50mm EX f2.8. Photomatix, Lightroom and Photoshop Elements used.

Another shot from round the back of the public library, only this time taken further back. A fair bit has gone into working on this one, mainly in terms of desaturating all of the brickwork and then bringing the colours back into the graffiti. Another thing I chose to do was to correct the perspective as my low camera position and wide angle led to some converging verticals, a process easily done in Photoshop using the transform tool.

On another note; the Holga Nikon mount lens I ordered last Friday has been delayed due to to an ‘unexpected amount of orders’ . Hopefully it won’t be too long before I receive it, I’ll think I’ll do a mini review. A perfect excuse to get out with the camera.