Leica M9 vs Holga! Which is Best? What IS Best?

[Jamie Pillers]

Let them eat cake!

Let them eat cake!

If you wanted to afford it, you could. 😉

😕 You must be one of those fortunate folk with a full-time job.

 

[jan normandale]

In a similar vein one of my Flickr 'friends' ran a Hasselblad vs Holga test. The results were very interesting. Here's the LINK to the two shots using C41 film.

 

[PICHA]

No matter the camera, I'm the best! 😀 :angel: 😱 😎



🙂

 

[redisburning]

Id rather have no physical camera than a Holga.

Holga money buys you a real camera though, if you're a bit patient.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I think whatever camera that you use has to be learned. You have to learn its strong points and its weaknesses. I'm not so much for accidents as I am mastering the tools I have or at the very least trying to. And you can learn a Holga just like any other camera. !

Yes, and I could also learn to whistle the National Anthem while standing on my head. The question is why I would want to bother.

What ARE the strong points of a Holga, as compared with just about anything else, including many cameras that are cheaper or free?

Cheers,

R.

 

[dotur]

[What ARE the strong points of a Holga, as compared with just about anything else, including many cameras that are cheaper or free?

Cheers,

R.[/quote]

You can make your normal picture into Fake Holga picture, but Holga cameras remain the safest buy! Holgas are genuine, the fakes are extremely rare...

www.ivanlozica.com

 

[nighstar]

In a similar vein one of my Flickr 'friends' ran a Hasselblad vs Holga test. The results were very interesting. Here's the LINK to the two shots using C41 film.

interesting (although silly imho). thanks for sharing. 🙂

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

What IS best ?

Some silly people would say a spoon for chicken noodle soup, a fork for leaf salad, and a knife for carving a turkey.

Surely, there are some people out there that prefer to use only a spoon to carve a turkey and a knife to slurp up their pea soup and would defend their views online with zeal.

 

[johannielscom]

Stephen, a better question might have been: "Which is a better babe magnet, the M9 or the Holga".

Holga probably wins.

A guy with a plastic colored toy camera, how cute is that? 😀

 

[johannielscom]

Horses for courses: see here for shots on a presidential campaign shot with a Holga.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Horses for courses: see here for shots on a presidential campaign shot with a Holga.

Very nice.

Which proves that anybody who knows how to use their tools spend more time applying them than mulling over brand name and its perceived "bestness".


Just like asking if a Yugo or a Ferrari is "best": it didn't make these guys better drivers.

 

[johannielscom]

Very nice.

Which proves that anybody who knows how to use their tools spend more time applying them than mulling over brand name and its perceived "bestness".


Just like asking if a Yugo or a Ferrari is "best": it didn't make these guys better drivers.

Least we can decide is that the Yugo is safer:

• no meeting of Yugo cars to drive to
• no Yugo pack on the highway
• Yugos cannot do 160 kmh

😀

 

[Jamie123]

What ARE the strong points of a Holga, as compared with just about anything else, including many cameras that are cheaper or free?

I think the strong points of a Holga are that, if you like that sort of look, just about any shot you take with that camera will look interesting. I just happen to find it utterly uninteresting so the Holga just doesn't do it for me. Any picture taken with a Holga is first and foremost a picture of the camera itself, not of the scene. I might aswell use the 'Hipstamatic' app on an iPhone.

Also, one could make the point that the Holga is simply a bad camera. Let's remember that it was not built as a cheap camera for the masses, not as a crappy camera with light leaks, a blurry lens and horrible vignetting.

 

[DamenS]

I would say buy the M9. It is easy in many current editing programs to make a digital file look like a Holga. it is much harder to make a Holga scan look like an M9 file. This is simple logic.

 

[jsrockit]

What ARE the strong points of a Holga, as compared with just about anything else, including many cameras that are cheaper or free?

Its total lack of quality is what gives it its charm... 😀

 

[Bobfrance]

I would say buy the M9. It is easy in many current editing programs to make a digital file look like a Holga.

Really? I think you've over simplified.
Such a synthesis is difficult and generally unconvincing to anyone familiar with the different formats.

A friend and I have spent quite a while attempting to achieve the medium format film look with M9 files. He's a very experienced professional photographer who has shot all formats and owns M9s and Hasselblads and I am a graphic designer who has spent many years using photoshop. We have come close but have ultimately failed to get the look of medium format that we are satisfied with from a single frame of a small format digital file.

The closest you will get us if you shoot multiple images and stitch them together, then start trying to replicate the film look, then the unique characteristics of the Holga lens. Why bother with such perverse geekery when Holga negs look like a Holga straight out of the soup?

 

[ray*j*gun]

For Christmas my son got me a Holga 60mm lens that fits my Nikon gear. I didn't know such a thing existed...... I can't wait to try it.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I think the strong points of a Holga are that, if you like that sort of look, just about any shot you take with that camera will look interesting. I just happen to find it utterly uninteresting so the Holga just doesn't do it for me. Any picture taken with a Holga is first and foremost a picture of the camera itself, not of the scene. I might aswell use the 'Hipstamatic' app on an iPhone.

Exactly. It comes back to "Those who quite like this sort of thing will find that this is the sort of thing they quite like."

I have nothing whatsoever against those who like Holgas, until they start trying to persuade me that they are right, and I am wrong. I'm not. Nor are they, necessarily, until they start getting evangelical about it.

Cheers,

R.

 

[DamenS]

Really? I think you've over simplified.
Such a synthesis is difficult and generally unconvincing to anyone familiar with the different formats.

A friend and I have spent quite a while attempting to achieve the medium format film look with M9 files. He's a very experienced professional photographer who has shot all formats and owns M9s and Hasselblads and I am a graphic designer who has spent many years using photoshop. We have come close but have ultimately failed to get the look of medium format that we are satisfied with from a single frame of a small format digital file.

The closest you will get us if you shoot multiple images and stitch them together, then start trying to replicate the film look, then the unique characteristics of the Holga lens. Why bother with such perverse geekery when Holga negs look like a Holga straight out of the soup?

LOL - You missed what was a very deliberate and (I thought) obvious irony. The question is whether you would buy an M9 if it meant you would not be able to afford to eat or pay rent - ergo to do so would be a stupid and irrational choice, which I "justified" by ignoring these important conditions and focussing on a "benefit" which is of so little importance (and at such great expense) as to be rendered entirely laughable. It was a joke - and it was actually the vast oversimplification (to the detriment of more important considerations) which made it thus !!

 

[Jamie123]

Really? I think you've over simplified.
Such a synthesis is difficult and generally unconvincing to anyone familiar with the different formats.

A friend and I have spent quite a while attempting to achieve the medium format film look with M9 files. He's a very experienced professional photographer who has shot all formats and owns M9s and Hasselblads and I am a graphic designer who has spent many years using photoshop. We have come close but have ultimately failed to get the look of medium format that we are satisfied with from a single frame of a small format digital file.

The closest you will get us if you shoot multiple images and stitch them together, then start trying to replicate the film look, then the unique characteristics of the Holga lens. Why bother with such perverse geekery when Holga negs look like a Holga straight out of the soup?

It's definitely true that you most often cannot replicate the soft gradations and tonality of medium format film with 35mm digital but I really think that's not the case with Holga images. I'd honestly be hard pressed to see the difference between an image shot with an actual Holga and an image shot on an iPhone using Hipstamatic, Instagram or the likes.The Holga itself introduces so many imperfections that the medium format advantage all but disappears. Besides, considering the large amount of vignetting you're hardly using the whole image area.