 Yo, what up? Welcome back to another episode of... That's it. I can't do it anymore. Aerochrome prices are way too over-inflated, so today I'll be launching my campaign to chug a bottle of flaming hot Mountain Dew every day until Kodak reintroduces Aerochrome. Tally-ho. Your move Kodak. Today's episode is sponsored by Squarespace. So you might have clicked on this video hoping that I'm gonna tear the whole good of shreds, relentlessly making fun of it, but the truth is, yeah, that's exactly what I'm gonna do. It sucks. When you think of the worst camera I've ever made, why is it always the Holga? Well, today we're gonna get to the bottom of it because it's kind of a rite of passage for every film YouTuber to make a Holga video. The Holga 120N. So what is the Holga 120N? Well, I guess by some people's standards, it's a camera. A medium format camera actually that shoots 645 or 6x6 if you remove the mask inside. Like the Kardashians, this camera is very plastic and barely works. The body, the lens, and the winder here are all completely plastic. The only pieces of metal I could even find on this thing are these two side lugs here. I guess technically the hot shoe and a spring that's in the lens. It does not have a light meter, it does not have autofocus, and it does not respect your artistic vision. But enough about the camera. What do the photos look like? After all, that is the most important part. They look like a typical middle school boys' bathroom after lunch on sloppy joe day. But let's not jump ahead. This camera isn't too heavy overall. In fact, it's actually super lightweight for the fact that it shoots medium format film. But what you're gaining in weight savings, you're losing in street cred. Up front on this plastic beast out of hell, we actually have the shutter button, which is next to the 60 millimeter lens, which is labeled an optical lens, which I believe on Google Translate means s**t lens. You can switch between your apertures up top here. One is sunny and the other is partly cloudy, which I believe is just f11 and f8 respectively. On the bottom of the lens, there's actually a tripod socket, and you can switch the shutter speed from N, which stands for nothing good will come of this, and of course B for bulb. So since this is a mechanical no battery required camera, might it be an underground hit for long exposure photography? Sorry, still no. As far as I'm aware, the only way to hold the shutter open when you're in bulb is to stand there like a jackass and hold the shutter button open. But anyway, to test this plastic bastard on the front lines, I headed out to Big Bear, California with Monica and our prized feral hog Baxter. After getting to the cabin we'd be staying at, Baxter got to work and gorging himself on the kibble, because that's literally all he cares about. And Monica and I dined on some of the finest Mexican cuisine you can find out west. Before I had to make an emergency run to the bathroom, clutching my ass in fear, I decided to load the Holga, which now to me almost kind of looks like it could have easily just been one of Baxter's toys. To load the Holga you need to approach it kind of carefully as if you're unearthing an ancient Egyptian cursed tomb. Lift these two metal slides to uncover the sarcophagus and breathe in all that ancient dust that'll probably kill you in 10 years or so. Hop your 120 film in on the left side and slide it over to the take-up spool on the right. Make sure that it's caught and put the back back on with the metal slides. There's no starting arrow for this film because whoever made this camera probably thought that that would be a bit too pro-level to add. You're actually supposed to use this back film window as your frame counter. Before you start winding though, it's pretty important to understand the mummy's curse of this camera. It is very, very, very prone to light leaks. What I did is I used gaff tape and taped the ever-loving crap over all the film door edges because if I was going to be shooting expensive medium format film, it sure as s*** better not be littered with light leaks. And since I was shooting 645 on the camera, I'll set the window to 16 and then wind on until I see frame numero uno. The winding mechanism is actually pretty cool, but it'll kind of hurt your hand after a while if you're a weak little baby like me. I guess it's time to get in some hand exercises at the gym. Alternatively, might I recommend becoming f***ing tight and getting a tech deck. Anyway, after nearly blowing up the entire building, we were finally able to relax once Baxter was finished warming up his ass. You did it. You got this bud. Good job bud. I didn't take any photos that night because there was barely any light. As I mentioned before, this camera has two apertures F8 and F11 and when paired with Kodak Gold 200, it's not exactly a low light beast. So I figured it might be better to wait until daylight. So I will say that shooting with this camera is a little unnerving because even if you're set at the right shutter speed, it still sounds like you're shooting in bulb mode. But back to lens quality. It's plastic and the photos definitely reflect that. The center is about the only usable part, but even then I wouldn't dare call it sharp. Shooting an expensive medium format film in this camera is kind of like going to a nice restaurant and asking the chef to burn your steak to a crisp before serving. What's the point of loading nice film if 60% of your image is going to be smeared with blur and lens coma? I guess it's a look, the lo-fi dream look. But at the same time, I don't really ask for my steaks to be deep fried. Anyway, since Baxter was clearly throwing a tantrum because the backyard wasn't big enough by his own incredibly overinflated standards, we decided to take him on a walk around the lake. So one of the things that I strongly didn't appreciate about this camera is that it's scale-focusing only. You're pretty much required to just guess where you think focuses. With only pictures on the lens of single person, couple with a stolen baby, large family not yet torn apart by divorce or mountain. Since I was at f11 most of the time, I pretty much just left my focus between large family and mountain. I can actually see the appeal of this camera for street photography though. There isn't much of a decision to be made with it. You kind of just frame up, guess focus, and hope that you get something tangible. Which is what I did with this photo and I guess I don't totally hate it. So reloading the camera kind of sucks big meaty eggs, especially if you have a ton of gaff tape on it. But hey ultimately it didn't even really matter because the photos were rampaged by light leaks anyway. It's kind of frustrating to do all that preventative work and kind of get nowhere. I guess comparatively it's as frustrating as eBay sellers who list expired film and then make no mention of how it was stored. Eventually we arrived at these picnic tables and I took this shot which is probably one of the best from the day because it's quite dreamy and warm. Anyway we wound down the day by chilling at the cabin and polishing off some leftover brown liquid. So something that I definitely did notice about this lens is that it has very strong pin cushion distortion heading out towards the edges. It basically takes any straight lines and bends them outward. You may like the look yourself or you might have nightmares about it like I do. Luckily I found that just not sleeping is a good way to avoid them and that you can actually correct this in Lightroom. I found that a value of minus 10 really kind of locks it in place and that's what I did for all these shots. The next day we took Baxter on a hike that was largely uphill of course with his tiny legs. This was basically his own personal Everest. Speaking of Everest we found a tiny bit of snow for the boy to check out because as far as we know he's never seen snow before which he then took it upon himself to ruin a beautiful moment. If you're using the 645 mask like I was the frame is going to be actually vertical in standard orientation. To get a horizontal shot you need to turn the camera sideways which definitely confuses the crap out of the two brain cells I have left but eventually you get used to it. Additionally there's no frame lines in the viewfinder for anything no 6x6 and definitely no 645 so you're kind of just guessing and you're just gonna have to make do with that. I guess the one nice thing about this camera being plastic is that they're relatively cheap coming in at around 50 bucks and you can have literally any color you want because they made them all. They even made glow in the dark if you're trying to spice up the next rave you're going to and drugs just won't cut it anymore. Anyway I'd had enough of only being able to shoot in harsh daylight so I loaded up some HP5 with the intention of pushing it two stops to 1600 ISO for some lower light shooting. First up would be a bathroom selfie. I guess I did want to say for the record that just because I think that this camera is as sh**t as they say it is doesn't mean you can't make exceptional work with it. As I've said before I personally really like the work of Anna Starr who shoots with the holga. She even compiled a zine called Plastic Perspective which features a lot of work from other photographers who've used this camera and it's truly inspiring to see what can be captured under such incredible limitations. But then again wait until they hear about what a rangefinder is. With that in mind we took our little Mogwai down to the harbor for some nice sunset light. Oh we farted any eight something. I actually like these shots. Minus the harsh vignetting. Lens flaring. Yeah it's got that too. I mean that lens has literally everything else so why not throw that in there. This is probably the closest that I focused on anything the entire trip. You also may not have noticed because you were distracted by our handsome model but you can actually see some depth of field in the shot too which is kind of cool. I really think the whole design of the camera would have made a lot more sense to me if it was like f8 and maybe f16 or f22 instead because currently with f8 and f11 that's just a one-stop difference and that's not very helpful but then again neither am I. However before I wrap up this video I'd like to quickly thank today's sponsor Squarespace. If you're a photographer you should probably be collecting your favorite work in a space that's viewable to the masses or at least your friends and family. 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In the end I guess it's better to have this plastic material be an actual camera than just out there floating in the ocean that will invariably get stuck on a turtle's ding dong and stop it from mating. Will I shoot this camera again? I don't know maybe someday in the far off future. I can see this camera being a lot of fun for birthdays festivals or even bachelor parties but I couldn't tell you from first hand experience because I never get invited to them because I always accidentally set someone on fire when I party but apparently whoever made the holga also doubled way the f*** down and made a 6x17 version of it so I don't know maybe someday I'll try that. I did actually like how the pushed HP5 looked on this camera. The soft dreamy aesthetic of the lens and the harsh contrasty look really go well together like a fine wine and flaming hot Doritos. I guess the look itself doesn't really transfer for me because I try to model all of my photos after paintings and painters generally didn't use blur, aberration, or vignetting you know unless they're possessed by a demon or something. This shot of monica and old backsy in the backyard is probably my favorite from that weekend. The colors and backlighting are really nice and I think it just feels more nostalgic to me than actual serious work. I guess if nothing else this camera really embodies the film photography spirit. Sometimes you just get absolutely lucky and your photos turn out amazing and other times you just want to punch your computer screen because your scans look like an unflushable 12 pound turd.