35mm Holga - SC Farmers Market

I have 3 medium format toy cameras at this point & I love medium format, but there are some things about it that are less than ideal about it when compared to 35mm film... difficult to find places develop it, a little more cumbersome in the toy cameras since you pretty much always need light to see the counter window on the back & only 12-16 exposures per a roll & a little bit of a pain to change out... After looking at the 35mm backs for the diana & holgas, I decided a dedicated 35mm would be a better choice. As it is, I sometimes wish I had different speed films in the cameras I have and I knew it would be worse with 35mm film sharing the same camera. Also, the backs were kinda expensive relative to a new camera & didn't necessarily have good reviews.... Based on my love of my 120 Diana, I decided to pick up the 35mm Diana. Well, I only shot 3 photos with it before it started eating film sprockets since the film advancer would become jammed (a common problem, although mine seemed to be an immediate problem vs. at frame 15 as for many others.) I tried contacting lomography with no response on help despite the camera supposedly comes with a warranty. This was extremely disappointing as I had high hopes for the Diana, but the fact the camera didn't work out of the box was beyond unacceptable considering the price.

Luckily my boyfriend was awesome and took me to Freestyle the next day to pick up a 35mm Holga. Of course, not in black, because none of my Holgas are black because the black ones are never on sale at Freestyle (I have very strict criteria!) So for the last 2 weeks, I've been carrying it around, trying out different films. The first couple rolls were color and unfortunately the photo places closest to me only do send out film development, which means you get scan and don't get negatives back. Since I can scan the film myself and pretty much only care about the film developing step, I have to explore some different options, but I'm hoping to develop some of the color film this weekend. Then the 4th roll was in my camera today, almost to the very last frame when I put it on the edge of my desk at work and it fell off and the camera popped right open! ACK! I quickly slammed it shut, but I don't have high hopes for the roll. The third rolls I shot was the only black and white roll so far, which means quick, cheap at home development! Joy!

These first few shots from the roll are from the Studio City Farmers Market last weekend. I'm definitely looking forward to shooting more photos there with color film. I was glad to finally get a chance to see some of the pictures shot with the camera to get a better idea about what's going on. This roll was 400, which was mostly ok with these single exposures, but I did have a few exposures that didn't really turn out from lower light conditions (including outdoors since we had a decent amount of rain recently.) I also always wondered what people were talking about with regard to light leaks on the holga, but this one has pretty obvious light leaks. Between the accident with the back opening and the light leaks, I'm going to try out taping the camera to see if that helps keep things a little cleaner/safe going forward.

Shut up and post time!