Freestyle's new low Holga prices

[canuhead]

...Toycamera Images require the use of Brain and not Brainlessnes like the society proclaims.

x1000

so much win in these words

 

[one90guy]

Dominik Not really into soft focus that much, was referring to colored filters with B/W, red, green orange, and yellow with some multicolored for double exposures. As for weight the Fm10 is a light weight, disliked by Nikon purist (not all), lots of plastic and light metal made by Cosin. I neither like nor dislike Holga, I bought my daughter one this summer and seen some of the results. Some which I liked, but I get about the same results with the Nikon. I also use a Argus C-3 for some of the same reasons. this stlye for me is pure fun, and if I get something I like ok then. I just was saying there other ways to get similar results.

 

[eddie]

Well-acquainted with the results. Hard core film shooters take 'em for what they are. It's the fashion victim/trendoid/hipster crew that buys them, shoots a few rolls, discovers that film and processing/printing aren't so cheap, bores their friends with small prints, then quits and goes back to their iPhone and Hipstamatic app. The novelty dies quickly.

I still don't see why what a hipster does with them should have any influence on anyone. I assume most people, here, are concerned with results. You seem to have disdain for the cameras, solely based on how others may view them. Would you also dismiss Leicas because some people use them as "jewelry"?

 

[zsas]

I don't understand how a simple price alert posting turned into a psychoanalysis of the hipster and his/he affinity towards cameras that some have no regard for. It is like this is a car forum and someone posted that a bunch of Yugo's are avail at some auction then the Ford guys start commenting about how buying a Ford is so much better....

 

[eddie]

I don't understand how a simple price alert posting turned into a psychoanalysis of the hipster and his/he affinity towards cameras that some have no regard for.

Exactly. Well said.

 

[one90guy]

I guess we can agree to disagree:^) I am glad we have such a wide choice of brands of cameras, the digital camera afforded me some very nice film cameras. I do own digital but have used film since 1968, so its my comfortable camera. Others may know more.

David

 

[Toffle]

I've got five loaded cameras in my kit for today... I just needed to hear someone bitch about the futility of Holgas to convince me to add mine to the mix.

Thanks.

 

[BobCrowley]

I find threads such as this one useful, since we are developing a new film product, and it gives us an idea of how well new products might be accepted, and among which groups. A large portion of our "audience" comprises younger people who first started with fun cameras such as Holgas, Dianas etc. They seem to me to be no different than Instamatics and the like from the 1960s, except they are specifically geared toward creative use. I like that sort of marketing, because it brings new people in. Obviously it is working, and I think anybody interested in seeing the industrial mass necessary for film production to be maintained should view it as a positive.

 

[CGW]

I find threads such as this one useful, since we are developing a new film product, and it gives us an idea of how well new products might be accepted, and among which groups. A large portion of our "audience" comprises younger people who first started with fun cameras such as Holgas, Dianas etc. They seem to me to be no different than Instamatics and the like from the 1960s, except they are specifically geared toward creative use. I like that sort of marketing, because it brings new people in. Obviously it is working, and I think anybody interested in seeing the industrial mass necessary for film production to be maintained should view it as a positive.

Any photographic material that requires lab service is skating on thin ice--that's where the analogies with Instamatics and the film-only world of '60s stall. Not certain many "fun camera" shooters outside of long-time film junkies are exploring home development as an option. Camera shooters just beginning with Holgas, Dianas, or other lo-fi plastics are not consuming huge quantities of film, probably way short of enough to arrest, much less reverse, the trend in film sales.

 

[Newt_on_Swings]

I might get flamed for this, but throw on a cheap soft filter, or even stretched cello film, and combine with a step down ring to your current setup and bam... lomo. also scrape off some foam from your door seals and you got the same light leaks... haha

 

[Joe VanCleave]

Any photographic material that requires lab service is skating on thin ice--that's where the analogies with Instamatics and the film-only world of '60s stall. Not certain many "fun camera" shooters outside of long-time film junkies are exploring home development as an option. Camera shooters just beginning with Holgas, Dianas, or other lo-fi plastics are not consuming huge quantities of film, probably way short of enough to arrest, much less reverse, the trend in film sales.

Conversely, one could argue that toy cameras are consuming more 35mm color film, and hence requiring more associated lab services, than any other sector of the amateur market, including legacy camera fondlers.

I don't know if it's the build quality of toy cameras versus legacy cameras (plastic vs. metal), or a generational divide ("them young 'uns"), that gets people's hackles up. Seems kind of hypocritical to be circling the film wagons against the onslaught of digital photography while leaving our plastic-bodied camera fans out in the cold just because they don't pass some arbitrary quality standard.

I like the marketing model of Lomo, especially with the new LomoKino. It's sure to create a bigger demand for color photo processing. And as an aside, I don't see the necessity to use exclusively Lomo-branded film in a Lomo camera. I find the 4-packs of el-cheapo Kodak or Fuji film works fine, and is purchased locally.

Another factlette: I get many digital-camera-captured images printed at local photo lab on RA-4 paper also. So I don't see a direct connection between such labs and the decline of film photography.

As long as outfits like Lomo and Holga and their ilk are manufacturing newly-designed film cameras (which they are), I'm all for them. I sure as hell don't see Canikon, et al, marketing newly-designed, high-build-quality film cameras. Put up or shut up.

~Joe

 

[lxdude]

I figure someone's buying them, so someone's using them.
That means more film and processing sales. That's a good thing.
Some stay with film. That's a good thing.

 

[lxdude]

Sales="No sales" in retail. They're over-priced hipster bait the hipsters can't afford. Here in Toronto, Holga starter kits go for $70. Who'd buy that when you can get something like Nikon FG+50/1.8E for around the same money?

You wouldn't. I wouldn't.
But the FG and 1.8, capable of giving much better pictures, is apparently not what they want, for whatever reason. Maybe it has something to do with cool, retro, low tech, irony, I don't know, but if not Holgas then it's probably iPhones, and that doesn't sell any film.

Myself, I'd think an old Brownie would be cooler, but I guess it wouldn't be giving all those cool effects to the picture. My mom's old Bullseye gave really nice images on 620 film. And come to think of it, it was plastic!

 

[eddie]

But the FG and 1.8, capable of giving much better pictures...

"Better" is subjective.

 

[pen s]

I'm new to APUG so forgive my ignorance. Here is my question.
Why would anyone go on the 'Toy Camera' forum and then put down toy camera users? After all, this is the TOY CAMERA FORUM! For instance, I have not the slightest interest in instant photography. But I would never denigrate anyone wanting to use instant photography to express their vision. A Holga in the right hands (that's not mine) can produce some really interesting work. I've seen photography from all kinds of cameras that I like and from all kinds of cameras I find dull and boring. And I assure all that I am an expert on dull and boring because I have produced enough of it in my own darkroom.

 

[lxdude]

"Better" is subjective.

OK. Technically better.

 

[Toffle]

I'm new to APUG so forgive my ignorance. Here is my question.
Why would anyone go on the 'Toy Camera' forum and then put down toy camera users? After all, this is the TOY CAMERA FORUM! For instance, I have not the slightest interest in instant photography. But I would never denigrate anyone wanting to use instant photography to express their vision. A Holga in the right hands (that's not mine) can produce some really interesting work. I've seen photography from all kinds of cameras that I like and from all kinds of cameras I find dull and boring. And I assure all that I am an expert on dull and boring because I have produced enough of it in my own darkroom.

Very well put.

 

[zsas]

I'm new to APUG so forgive my ignorance. Here is my question.
Why would anyone go on the 'Toy Camera' forum and then put down toy camera users? After all, this is the TOY CAMERA FORUM! For instance, I have not the slightest interest in instant photography. But I would never denigrate anyone wanting to use instant photography to express their vision. A Holga in the right hands (that's not mine) can produce some really interesting work. I've seen photography from all kinds of cameras that I like and from all kinds of cameras I find dull and boring. And I assure all that I am an expert on dull and boring because I have produced enough of it in my own darkroom.

Thanks for standing up and saying this! I made an attempt myself to say something earlier in the thread to no avail. Let's hope those that wish to debate toy camera users do so and do it in the Ethics forum. All else here is rude and sad. This was a Price Alert thread of a brand of cameras that went on sale folks. I'm not even a toy camera user but find some terrible injustice of their approach to photography questioned. Shouldn't pinhole also be attacked and other photographers using meniscus lenses too, if image quality and dependability are often made as the major tenant of their point....

These threads tire me so, like we are at some other forum debating a new Nikon v Canon....

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I'm new to APUG so forgive my ignorance. Here is my question.
Why would anyone go on the 'Toy Camera' forum and then put down toy camera users? After all, this is the TOY CAMERA FORUM! For instance, I have not the slightest interest in instant photography. But I would never denigrate anyone wanting to use instant photography to express their vision. A Holga in the right hands (that's not mine) can produce some really interesting work.

Very good point, and there's no ignorance there at all. If fashion is driving some significant proportion of film photographers today, let's go with it. If a few of them do great work by playing with the random and not-so-random artifacts of toy cameras, then that encourages more people to try analogue. If some of them choose to go deeper, then all the better.

Freestyle does a fantastic job of promoting analogue photography in the educational environment, and part of that effort involves meeting the customers half-way. If young people want to try shooting film with a toy camera because they think it's cool, I'd say that's better way of learning about analogue photography than downloading Hipstamatic on an iPhone. Realistically, that's the alternative.

 

[eddie]

I've met many young people to whom Holgas have been the "gateway drug" to a serious interest in film photography. It's good for all of us.

 

[CGW]

Conversely, one could argue that toy cameras are consuming more 35mm color film, and hence requiring more associated lab services, than any other sector of the amateur market, including legacy camera fondlers.

I don't know if it's the build quality of toy cameras versus legacy cameras (plastic vs. metal), or a generational divide ("them young 'uns"), that gets people's hackles up. Seems kind of hypocritical to be circling the film wagons against the onslaught of digital photography while leaving our plastic-bodied camera fans out in the cold just because they don't pass some arbitrary quality standard.

I like the marketing model of Lomo, especially with the new LomoKino. It's sure to create a bigger demand for color photo processing. And as an aside, I don't see the necessity to use exclusively Lomo-branded film in a Lomo camera. I find the 4-packs of el-cheapo Kodak or Fuji film works fine, and is purchased locally.

Another factlette: I get many digital-camera-captured images printed at local photo lab on RA-4 paper also. So I don't see a direct connection between such labs and the decline of film photography.

As long as outfits like Lomo and Holga and their ilk are manufacturing newly-designed film cameras (which they are), I'm all for them. I sure as hell don't see Canikon, et al, marketing newly-designed, high-build-quality film cameras. Put up or shut up.

~Joe

We've been through this so many times recently. The war's over and film got run into the hills. Cheap, mass market C-41 processing is dead or drawing its last breath in much of N. America. Where cheap dry lab printing survives, there's often no film processing offered any longer or what's on offer sucks. Film sales are not resurgent and I'm not seeing sales data to suggest toy cameras are leading the charge to markedly higher film consumption. I'd be very pleased if the lo-fi camera movement did this but so far it just ain't happenin' in my area.

 

[canuhead]

I used to use a lab in an area that was located between two hipster centrals and last time I was there, the wall of film was still there but slimmed down and the old lineups out the door, no longer out the door. If plastic is popular, I'm not seeing them buying film and shooting very much. Maybe they're all b/w and processing at home ? dunno. They are buying expired film at camera shows which in all honestly, isn't helping anyone afaic.

Considering there's a Lomo store in Toronto now, I would have figured labs would be doing better.

btw, I have and shoot plastic pretty often but am not averse to cameras with more precision or, non analgoue or require hiding under big pieces of cloth.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Fashion has local and global aspects, of course. I don't see Urban Outfitter trying to enter the camera market beyond Lomo, Holgas, and Fuji Instax, but if they're in the stores, there's a good probability that they're selling. Photography is totally peripheral to their product, so they're not in business to do any favors for film photography. They stock cameras, because they turn a profit. What is remarkable to me is that there about half a dozen shops in the NYU area and several more in Brooklyn selling plastic cameras and film, and it's not too unusual to see people on the street carrying not only these cameras, but also more sophisticated analogue cameras, and the toy camera context has generated interest and respect for traditional photography.

Maybe it isn't happening in everyone's neighborhood, and maybe there's a certain lack of enthusiasm for the idea of young people who can afford high rents and can justify spending a lot of money on a plastic photographic fashion accessory, but they are part of our analogue photography world, and we all benefit from their activity. Money spent on analogue photography of any sort is, after all, money not spent on many less worthwhile things, and I can't think of any good reason to discourage it.

 

[Toffle]

We've been through this so many times recently.

Ya, tedious ain't it? Every time someone suggests anything positive about film photography, they are drowned out by a chorus of naysayers who seem intent on the first and the last person to declare the death of film. But instead of conceding defeat, I choose to be a passionate supporter of all things film. Instead of cyinical, I am hopeful. Instead of labeling any new initiative as futile, I celebrate that we have film to shoot. Instead of jeers I choose cheers. Call me stupid, (but come to my door and try it to my face, it takes no courage at all to insult others on the internet) but every time I read a comment declaring the death of film, I feel like reaching for a film camera and firing off a roll. Being positive and hopeful is more than a naive chorus of "kumbaya"... it encourages others that at least for today the film community is alive and kicking ass. I would be ashamed to think that someone looking for reasons to buy a film camera would find exactly the opposite, here on APUG.

 

[CGW]

I would be ashamed to think that someone looking for reasons to buy a film camera would find exactly the opposite, here on APUG.

I guess you find a little honesty embarrassing. Sorry!