Holga and Lomo Scans

Photography has gone through many movements in response to new kinds of cameras and lenses. Soft focus lenses were in vogue during the 1920s. This gave rise to the impressionist movement in photography. Leica created the first 35mm camera. This gave rise to 35mm movement. The advent of digital cameras led to the digital photography movement.

Now, a new kind of camera is creating a new movement in photography. Holga, Lomo and other low-cost cameras are creating what is known as the “Holga Movement” or the “Lomography Movement”. These cameras started out as cult classics. As more and more people fell in love with them, they led to a major movement in photography. These simple yet magnificent plastic wonders have popped up in local storefronts and photography classes across the nation.

People love the look of the pictures that Holga and Lomo cameras produce. Because they are cheap and because they are made of plastic they have certain “defects” that the world has begun to appreciate. It is common for the images to appear soft, to have vignetting, or traces of light leaks. This is what makes the images unique. People have learned to appreciate the creative value for such a tool.

Today, the old big glass soft focus portrait lenses from the 20’s and 30’s glamour days have become a hot commodity and sell for thousands of dollars each because people adore the magical look that a soft focus lens creates. Holga and Lomo cameras create a similar look, but they are cheap enough for every photography student in America to purchase.

Holga and Lomo cameras shoot medium format roll film, also known as 120 or 220 roll film, which contributes to the vintage look and feel of the photographs that they take. Images are recorded to light sensitive particles on the films base, and then the film needs to be processed for the image to be viewed. A roll of medium format film and the subsequent cost of processing are not very high. Users can shoot color slide (transparency) film, color negative film, or black white film. Negatives capture a high subject brightness range and are a little bit more forgiving to work with. Slides are generally a little sharper, finer grained, and feature more contrast putting more pop into your work. The film you decided to use is completely subjective, some photographers like one film over another while others use everything. You have to try it all and see what works for you.

Beyond loving the images that come out of Holga and Lomo cameras, people love the low price. Even though the film costs money, the low cost of the cameras make the total cost of ownership lower than digital photography. In addition, there are all sorts of different kinds of low-cost cameras to choose from. There are fisheye cameras, panoramic cameras, underwater cameras, pinhole cameras each with a unique creative potential. Many of these cameras come in bright colors that make a fashion statement.

So after you take the images then what?

Well, traditionally negatives and slides can be enlarged optically, but commercial most film labs have replaced their optical enlargers that turn film images into photographic prints directly with digital imaging equipment that turns digital files into photographs. Before the film can be imaged digitally, it must be scanned to convert it into a digital file.

This is where we come to play. We can produce very high quality scans of your medium format Holga or Loma film; so that you can publish the images online, make digital prints, and manipulate the images in a program such as Photoshop (if desired). We have very expensive equipment that produces quality scans that are free of dust in a fast efficient manner. We can scan a whole roll at once or just a single frame if needed. We believe this to be the best option for every Holga or Lomo user. Scanning your own film yourself would not be worth your time as our system is so fast and efficient that time that would be spent scanning your film would greatly outweigh any cost savings, plus the quality of our scans is higher then what can be obtained with consumer scanning equipment. In addition the cost of even a consumer film scanner can be quite high; often more than $1,000. Our system had a new cost of $120,000 or more, you just can’t get the same results in the consumer price scanner price range.