We personally have a soft spot for the Holga. In our days as undergrad art students, the discovery of this “toy-like” medium format film camera was an epiphany. It was a more affordable, not very precious, device whose sometimes finicky behaviors created surprising effects, could easily create double exposures, and was just fun to experiment with. It has endured with photo enthusiasts through the years and, now especially, there’s something to love about the return to analog, of tempering immediate results with patience, and the surprise of what’s to come… very much like the relationship to the garden.

We actually think it’s a great for garden photography. Gardens are notoriously hard to capture… and the Holga takes some of the pressure off of perfection and brings us back the basics of light and composition. It tends to create slight distortions resulting in a dreamy vignette that can capture the romance of landscape beautifully.

About the Holga 120GCFNA
This glass lens version of the cult classic adds greater sharpness and contrast while maintaining the charm of light leaks, soft edges, and rich vignetting that the camera is known for.

Sharpness is better achieved with its glass lens, but the real joy is in its unpredictability: the built-in flash with a spinning color wheel (choose red, blue, yellow, or white) adds playful bursts of light, while the manual film advance and zone focusing slows things down in the best way.

Details:

• Shoots on 120 medium format film (camera does not come with film)
• Glass 60mm f/8 lens and lens cap
• Flash with spinning color wheel (white, red, yellow, blue)
• Aperture settings f/8 for cloudy and f/11 for sunny
• Shutter 1/100 sec or bulb for long exposures
• Zone focus from 3 ft to infinity
• Includes 6×6 cm and 6×4.5 cm frame masks (12 or 16 shots per roll)
• Manual film advance with rear red window
• Standard 1/4"-20 tripod mount
• Requires 1 AA battery for flash
• Plastic body

Our recommendation for film: 120mm film with ISO 400 is a great place to start. B&W and color film are both worth exploring, bringing out their own unique qualities of the camera.