A baby Holga!

Back in March, I found an ebay seller in Hong Kong that was advertising the Holga 135BC at about $18 + the same for shipping. At first I thought the shipping was too excessive, but then realized it was still cheaper than buying the camera from any US vendor (and not including shipping)! So, I did a "buy it now" and a few weeks later, the camera arrived from China.



The Holga 135BC takes 35mm film and has a build very similar to the latest model Holgas that use 120 film. A 47mm glass lens with an f/8 aperture, B+N shutter, and focus from about 4 feet to infinity. There is a spot for a screw-in cable release on the shutter button and a tripod socket. The "BC" means "bent corners" or vignetting on the corners, which is achieved by a cutout behind the lens with a dot-pattern to cause the slight vignette. I like the feature of being able to do multiple exposures without advancing the film, and the B setting is pretty handy.



I like the way the camera feels in my hand, and though I only have one roll of film through it, I like what I see so far. I shot with it at an overcast day at Festifools in downtown Ann Arbor on April 5, and finished the roll at the Ann Arbor Area Crappy Camera Club meeting at the Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti on April 7. For those, I used a Vivitar flash.

Festifools:




It was pretty overcast for 100 speed film that day, so I would recommend 400 if shooting in dreary weather.

One shot from the A3C3 Meeting:



Right now I have a roll of Plus-X Pan in it, and will probably load it with some Eastman 5222 (250 ISO) after that. The camera doesn't feel cheap like those plastic Vivitar cameras, and if the US vendors could get these on the market for $25 each, they would sell a ton of them.