Weekend Wanderings – Alowyn Gardens through the Holga Lens

Weekend Wanderings - Alowyn Gardens through the Holga Lens

This morning I ran a macro class at Alowyn Gardens and once it was done I took some photos for Weekend Wanderings of the place through the Holga Lens.

Weekend Wanderings - Alowyn Gardens through the Holga Lens

Weekend Wanderings – Alowyn Gardens through the Holga Lens

The Holga lens is a plastic one that fits onto my DSLR and takes some strange images. It is meant to imitate the Holga cameras that you could buy back in film days. I think you can still get them, but I just got the lens instead.

They are known for taking strange images. I don’t know how else to explain it. You get a lot of vignetting and the colours can be a bit strange. It is weird, but you can get some cool effects with it. Sometimes it is good to just go out with something different to see what you can get. It is like being a child again.

Macro Class

The class went really well. I thought the rain would be a problem but it wasn’t. We were able to spend quite a bit of time in the gardens before we had to come in. The added bonus, of course, was the there were water drops everywhere. Doing macro photography after rain can be so good.

Winter isn’t always a good time for macro, but there is always something to photograph. There were some flowers, but there were also lots of textures from the different autumn leaves. When you look you can find so much.

For this class, I did something different and I took along a couple of old cameras so people could use them. I have a lot of gear for macro photography, but it is all for Nikon. There are so many different options for people who don’t own macro lenses, and letting them try those options is very important.

Unusually there were more Nikon cameras there today, so they tried my extension rings. I think they enjoyed being able to do that.

Future classes

Now I need to start thinking up other classes. It would be good to do one with more special effects. There also seems to be a lot of interest in post processing and we are going to plan a class there for that. It is a great place to teach, and I really enjoy it.

After the class

When I am teaching I don’t get a lot of time to take photos. So after it I went for a walk around them with my camera and the Holga lens.

Here is a gallery to show you what I got with it.

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12 Comments

  1. Beautiful captures! I, too, have one of the slip on Holga lenses but have not really done much experimenting with it. After owning it for four years, and seeing your photos, I am now inspired to finally stop being lazy and just do it. 🙂

    1. Thank you Cindy. Sounds like you need to get it out and see what you can do with it. I wouldn’t take all my photos with it, but it is nice to play with it from time to time. Let me know if you do.

    2. Hi Leanne. I plan to take it out and play with it sometime this week. Will post my shots. Have you tried the turret lens kit?

  2. I have a ‘toy camera’ setting on my camera that gives a similar vignette. But yours is a bit darker, a bit moodier. My setting just looks….old. I like yours better.

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