Holga Camera

If you are new to holga camera, and would like to find out more, this page will help you in your endeavour.

Holga camera is one of the many toy cameras in the market and is one with many different series of models.  The Holga camera has first made its appearance in 1982 in Hong Kong and is then used as an inexpensive form of photography for  the mass market in China. After it has been introduced to foreign markets, photographers began using the Holga for its surrealistic, impressionistic scenes for landscape, still life, portrait, as well as street photography.

Holga camera is well known for creating pictures with effects such as vignetting, blur, light leaks, dark corners and other distortions.  Pictures taken from Holga cameras have won awards and competition in several art and photo journalism. A Holga photograph by David Burnett of former vice-president Al Gore during a campaign appearance earned a top prize in a 2001 White House News Photographers’ Association Eyes of History award ceremony.

Holga Camera is seen as a successor to the Diana and other cameras of such art display.

What does the letters for the different models of Holga Camera stands for?

G? F? N? WPC? We know exactly how overwhelmed you are right now. You just have to know what the letters stand for.

For example: Want a glass lense 120 holga with standard, no-color flash? Then what you need is a Holga 120GFN.

Term	Definition
S	Standard, as in the original Holga 120S
N	New/Normal, means the new standard, the 120S was replaced with the 120N
G	Glass, A glass version of the standard plastic Holga lens
F	Flash, this means the holga has a flash built in
W	Wide, for a wide panaoramic holga
CF	Color Flash, these letters will always be together, the color flash enables you to change the color on the flash that is built into the holga.
PC	Pinhole Camera, Anytime you see PC, it means the holga doesn’t have a lense, but a pinhole instead, along with a permanent ‘B’ bulb mode.
BC	Bent/Black Corners, The standard 135 camera lacks a lot of vignetting, so holga introduced the BC version to ‘bend the corners’ of your photo giving that much loved holga effect.
3D	Three Dimensional. Basically, a holga with 2 lenses.
TLR	Twin Lens Reflex, a holga with one lens for framing and one for taking the photo.
TIM	We have no idea, probably just a cute name?
120	Takes 120 Film
135	Takes 35mm Film
110	Takes 110 Film

There are also many different kinds of holga cameras, and we have set up a table so that you can know your holga camera as well as their cousins and siblings.