Day for Night: The Holga HL-N

Boothbay Harbor, Maine
Nikon D90 + Holga HL-N

One thing that the Holga HL-N seems to excel at is taking dark pictures. It’s tricky judging the exposure by chimping, and as you work your way down to the correct shutter speed, you invariably wind up with images like this…dark and underexposed.

Underexposure is one of those hollywood tricks that allows night scenes to be filmed during full or partial daylight. With plenty of light available, you control how much of it you use. Instead of trying to fight the Holga HL-N, you can use its unique characteristics to your advantage.

This image is a throwaway, unless you view it in a different “light”. Scanning quickly through my images in Adobe Bridge, I forgot I shot this with the Holga and thought it was a night scene. Upon closer inspection, it has some very pleasing aesthetic qualities. Using Adobe Camera Raw, I opened it up slightly with Brightness, then pulled the darks back down with Contrast to achieve the same overall brightness level but with more luminescent highlights. The image is quite sharp for a single-element meniscus lens.

If I wished to intentionally create a night scene during daylight or dusk, I could easily reach for this lens, knowing its unique characteristics.

Head of the Harbor, Boothbay Harbor, Maine
Nikon D90 + Holga HL-N + Holga .5X Wide Angle Adapter

This image is more of a “normal” exposure for this lens. Interestingly, it was shot with the .5X Wide Adapter, which in my opinion doesn’t make that much of a difference. It certainly doesn’t look 45mm to me. But because of the way the HL-N is designed, it does not significantly reduce the vignetting effect, which is a good thing. It also doesn’t seem to degrade the sharpness significantly.