I love the Holga 120WPC. It's lightweight, easy to use, and can yield awesome results in 6x9 or 6x12 formats. It does however have a significant drawback, which is related to focal length and negative size. The physical focal length (the perpendicular line from the pinhole to the film plane) of this camera is approx. 40mm, but with the 6x12 mask in place the edges of the negative are much farther away from the pinhole than 40mm. I'll illustrate:
The labeled f-stop on the 120WPC is f/135, but as I've shown in my calculation above, the effective f-stop at the edges of a 6x12 negative is f/240. This gives an approximate exposure difference of two stops from the center to the edge. This is a noticeable difference, perhaps not for those who are scanning film, but indeed so for those of us who print in the darkroom.
Interestingly, this 2-stop exposure difference is retained, regardless of exposure length. Using the exposure suggestions on the back of the 120WPC, I assigned Exposure Values (EV) to each and made exposure calculations, correcting for reciprocity failure where needed:
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| The recommended exposure times on the back of the Holga. I assign EV 15, 13, and 11 to these weather descriptions. |
Even when accounting for reciprocity failure (in this case, using P=1.15 for TMax100 film), the adjusted exposure for the edges of the film is approximately 4 times (2 stops) greater than at the center. It's nice knowing that we don't need to make more complex calculation on-scene when using this camera.
With these calculations in mind, we can strategize when using his camera, to either use this shortcoming to our advantage, or selectively place bright subjects off-center so they don't wind up unnecessarily over-exposed. I'll show some example photos of mine below, and caption them with some discussion and explanation.
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| This photo is scanned from a darkroom print. I slightly dodged the edges to lighten them a bit, but they are still much darker than the middle. In this case, with the sun shining through the trees in the middle, I like the effect and don't mind the dark sides. |
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| A scanned negative. Again, a bright subject placed centered in the frame gets extra exposure and is exaggerated. I think this characteristic of the camera works to great effect here. |
Other considerations when shooting with this camera include keeping track of light sources. In most cases, having the light source behind the camera gives the best chance of success. Sometimes though, having the sun in-frame can yield interesting results:
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| A unique artefact of the suns light interacting with the pinhole. Not a bad effect; I was pleasantly surprised seeing this come out of the development tank. This photo is a scanned negative. |
On the other hand, sometimes the sun will accidentally shine through a scene, creating unintentional and undesirable flare on the film:
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| Here, the sun is obviously out-of-frame, but it was shining onto the pinhole nonetheless. The resulting flare spoils the photo for me, so this negative isn't likely to see any action in the darkroom. |
In my experience, the only way to be completely sure to avoid these light flares, is to point the camera completely away from strong light sources. I may try modifying a hood that could fit on the camera someday.
I hope this deep dive into the nuances of the 120WPC was of interest! As always, I encourage discussion and very much welcome feedback.
