Paper Negative in Holga

[JoeV]

It's time to start a thread about using small sheets of paper negatives in Holga or other toy cameras. Harman Direct Positive Paper images also welcome.

Today I took the Holga 120 GFN out in the backyard, loaded with a small scrap of grade 2 RC paper. I used the daylight f-stop setting and bulb shutter mode. Unfortunately, my light meter had been inadvertently set to incident mode, meaning this paper negative was over-exposed. But I was able to recover some detail in the scan. Three second exposure; should have been closer to one second.

It's also important to tape over the rear red film counter window with black tape, to prevent fogging the paper. And I've also attached Velcro-type fastener to the back, to prevent it popping off by accident.

~Joe

 

[raytoei@gmail.com]

JoeV, very nice. How did you figure out the exposure ?

 

[JoeV]

Thanks, Ray.

About the exposure, This grade 2 RC paper (Freestyle's Arista brand) I've used before, and through experimentation I rate it at EI=12. I develop it for two minutes in liquid concentrate paper developer diluted around 1+15.

As for the Holga GFN (meaning Glass lens, Flash on board and Newer model), I had measured the two aperture settings diameter, which gives me the actual f-stops, that I affix to the camera with a label maker, as I also do the focus distances marked by the cartoon-like symbols on the lens.

So I set my light meter to the paper's EI of 12, meter the scene and reference the exposure time opposite the lens f-stop value of around f/16. Which sounds all precise and scientific until you realize that to make the recommended exposure you have to set the Holga to bulb mode, and guesstimate the >1 second exposure. But with a bit of practice it works.

BTW, for Harman Direct Positive Paper I use an exposure index of 3. And I use the paper developer as a one-shot, because it exhausts easier with this special paper, and develop for 3 minutes instead of 2.

I also pre-flash both kinds of paper to raise the shadow exposure and reduce excess contrast, but I'll leave the details of that for later.

~Joe

PS: Here's a YouTube video I did on pre-flashing and using paper negatives.

http://youtu.be/13PGOFqNruU

 

[alienmeatsack]

I recently purchased some of the Harman Direct Positive paper myself and started playing with doing paper photos.

First thing I did was cut a sheet of 4x5 in half and put it into my Diana and Holga. Sadly, the Holga ones didn't come out due to exposure error on my part but the Diana shots did.

I found that a 4x5 sheet cut in half fits nicely inside of each of these cameras. It's a little wasteful, paperwise, but it makes it easier then trying to cut down a bunch to fit perfectly. And I found that the extra width helped to hold it in place for taking the shots.

This weekend I am going to take the Holga out for a few shots again, this time doing it right. 😀

This technique also works nicely in most any of the Lomography medium format cameras, but I like the idea of it in the Holga and Diana most for some reason.