“The Holga is an inexpensive, medium format 120 film toy camera, made in China, appreciated for its low-fidelity aesthetic.”

Originally shot with a Olympus OM-4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 21mm f/2.0 lens on Fujicolor Pro 160s. Modified with a Photoshop Holga action

Holga’s really are remarkable cameras. Take everything that is valued in the digital photography world (edge to edge sharpness, contrast, accurate exposure, lack of vignetting, etc), look for the inverse of it, and you have a Holga. But despite the flaws, these are surprisingly popular cameras. What they have going for them are the fact they are cheap, they’re cool, they’re very different and their shots are bursting with a distinctive yet recognisable character. Oh, and did I already mention a Holga is a medium format camera available for under $30?

This post however, is not actually about a Holga camera – but a Holga photoshop action that mimics its output. I don’t always have time or the inclination to shoot film and having a creative action readily available can be a lot of fun – and sometimes transform the right sort of image into something much more interesting. The action in question is called a “Holga Simulator” by Alberto Campione and is available for download here. There are others around, potentially better ones too, but I like Alberto’s action as it’s fast, easy to use and free.

Assuming you have Photoshop CS and have installed the action, here’s how you use it.

First of all, start with your image, select the Holga action, resize to “about 4MP” and then press play (for those interested, this is a shot of my dog Sora which I took using an Olympus OM-4, Olympus OM Zuiko 21mm f/2.0 on Fujicolour 160s).

After a couple of disclaimers / notices, you get the chance to select whether you want to choose a square crop (which is the natural Holga look) or keep a landscape orientation. For this image I chose square:

Once you’ve done that, hit play again and the action will quickly finish giving you a funky black and white Holga looking shot. We’re not done yet but this step yields the following result:

Finally, before you finish you get a chance to do your own editing (with the final popups from the previous step encouraging you to edit the saturation / levels as needed). I chose to edit the curves, dodge and burn a little and within 60s from start to finish, my Holga transformation was complete:

I’ve used this action before on other shots. Here are a couple of my favourites:

koriyama City, Japan. Originally shot with the Olympus E-P1 + kit lens

Near Meiji Shingu Temple, Tokyo. Originally shot with the Olympus E-P1 + kit lens

Back streets of Asakusa, Tokyo. Originally shot with the Olympus E-P1 + kit lens

My good friend and photographer extraordinaire Tommy Oshima. Originally shot with the Olympus E-P1 + Olympus Pen F 42mm f/1.2

Cannon Beach, OR. Originally shot with a Canon 5D Mk II

So there you have it, a free photoshop action that reduces your several thousand dollar equipment to a shot that you could have taken with a sub $30 camera! Like all techniques however, there can too much of a good thing when it comes to actions like this – the real value comes from using it sparingly and when the photo really deserves the Holga treatment.

Still, despite the wonders of modern technology, when it comes to holga-ography, there’s nothing quite like the real thing… If you want to get hold of a real camera to try, you can pick one up from Amazon here.