Images shot with the HL(W)-SN Holga Lens on the Sony NEX-5N
These are some old photographs. Even for me, as someone who takes a long time to get stuff published on here after shooting, they are old.
Shot in late 2012 and early 2013, they actually predate this website itself.
At the time, I was just playing with my new Sony NEX-5N. Unfortunately, Sony lenses were too expensive for me – and maybe still are, it’s been years since I’ve checked – but I wanted something different than the kit lens to mess about with.
So when I saw there was a Holga lens for Sony e-mount cameras and they could be got for a dirt cheap price, I quickly got one.
And then I barely used it.
Looking back at these shots now, and some from Hong Kong with the same lens too, that looks to me to be a shame. I remember at the time not loving them. But I can feel a charm in them now that I didn’t appreciate before.
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The charm of a photograph might just be nostalgia
At the time of writing, I’ve been finding it harder to get enthusiastic about going out with my camera in recent… times.
I’m not going to get into that too much here, but let’s just say England isn’t half as interesting a place for me to go around and shoot as Shanghai was, it takes me a lot longer to get somewhere worth going to with a camera than it did in Shanghai, and I just have a lot less time and more actual life responsibilities to take care of these days too.
These images here remind me of when everything was just more… freewheelin’.
Life, and photography. I was young and full of wonder and curiosity, and of hope and optimism. Shanghai was exciting. Walking around with a camera was too.
Street photography still felt special to me. It doesn’t so much now.
And that’s a big part of why I think I like these photographs more now than I ever did before. Because I haven’t really looked at them much since I took them, and now I do they really remind me of that time.
The time, before we moved to Qibao, when we lived at Zhongshan Park, which is where the next three images were taken.
The guy in the first one might just be one of the coolest people I ever saw in Shanghai.
Some reasons I didn’t like this lens at the time
I didn’t know much about Holgas when I got this lens. I know more now, having borrowed and shot one a few years later. You can see what I thought of it in my full review here.
But one thing I did know when shooting this Holga lens on my Sony NEX-5N was that Holgas mainly took square photos.
Yes, you can use the 645 mask for rectangular shots. But in my mind, the normal, native Holga aspect ratio was square.
And my Sony NEX-5N had no option for shooting square images.
So that was a downer. Yes, I could crop the images afterwards. But that would lead to odd-looking half vignettes. And I’d been composing my shots to make everything in the frame important anyway.
What’s good is that now, again looking at these shots years later, I couldn’t really care less that they’re not square. They are what they are and I like them for what they are.
A mish-mash of styles and camera settings
The next image is a real giveaway that I was quite new to having a proper camera when I shot it. Because when you’re that wet behind the ears, you think things like Selective Colour look good.
Because I had the NEX-5N set to shoot like that, I have no normal version of this image. I could have made it just black and white, but I’d rather post it as is.
I’d rather show things how they really are than try to hide anything. And actually, I do quite like it anyway.
The next shot was also taken with some funky setting that I can’t remember now. Something that enhances the details in an image.
You can see it on the Shangri-La hotel in the middle. It even looks a bit painting-like. Unfortunately, it’s also led to some bad artefacts on the left side of the shot above those buildings.
Again, I’m just posting what I have from all those years ago. It’s not that deep.
What is a little deeper at the time, maybe, was the symbolism of the Shanghai Tower being built. When it was completed, it was the second tallest building in the world.
It isn’t anymore, but it was.
I remember being inspired by it back then, seeing it rise up in real time as we’d moved from rural China to Shanghai to improve ourselves too.
There was a real and infectious energy to the city back then. As the Shanghai Tower grew, so did we.
Some bonus Holga lens fisheye photographs
As if the Holga lens for Sony NEX wasn’t fun enough by itself, you can also get a fisheye attachment for it.
It could be argued that fisheye lenses are another novelty that beginners are drawn to before growing out of them, but they can also just be really enjoyable to play around with.
The four images here are nothing special, although the dog was a handsome boy.
But they do make me want to dig the fisheye out again the next time I go out – for the first time in over a decade – with this Holga lens.
Wrapping up these Holga lens on a digital camera shots
This Holga lens has been the forgotten man in my camera gear for longer than I’ve had this website. I can’t remember if I got it before or after my first vintage lens – the F.Zuiko 38mm f1.8 – but I’m thinking it may have been just before.
Considering I wrote that review in 2014, that’s a long time to have been ignoring this one.
Weirdly, writing this blog post now has posed more questions for me than it has answered.
- why have these images sat doing nothing for over ten years?
- why didn’t I use this lens more back in the day?
- when am I going to use it again?
The answer to that final question is ‘at the next available opportunity’.
I wrote recently about how much I enjoyed trying out the 7Artisans 10mm f3.5 on my NEX-5N after so many years of shooting film only.
It feels like giving this Holga lens another spin could bring a similar kind of joy.
And that’s something we could probably all do with a little more of. 🙂
If you enjoyed this look back on some Holga lens shots from Shanghai and fancy some more posts about images shot on a mirrorless camera with vintage lenses, why not have a look at some of these too:
And if you think others will find this post worth a read, help them find it by giving it a share 😀
