Holga 135Tim Camera

Since Christmas is getting near here's nice inexpensive gift for a Lomography fan or a kid who love photography but too small to handle a digital camera. This Holga 135Tim Camera is only around $30 and comes in 4-5 colors to choose. Anyone who loves Lomo cameras or small kids who would love to have their own camera would love this cute little camera. It's very simple and need No Batteries. Light weight too. So it can't be a perfect Christmas gift. 

Holga 135Tim Camera has twin lenses, Bulb and 1/100s shutter settings. Also F8, F11 and F22 apertures available. It takes Half-frame 35mm film which you can buy along with the camera for very cheap from Amazon or even your local camera store later.

With this Holga 135Tim camera you can shoot two half frame exposures at the same time or one after the other.If you want to expose a single film multiple times then you can do it by resetting  the shutter.

This Holga camera has a button which let you switch between normal shutter exposure and bulb setting but also it comes with a hot shoe which let you mount a Holga 12S flash for it. These Holga Flashes comes with same colors as Holga 135Tim cameras.

Holga 12S Flash with color filters is only $15 Amazon  (Check Here)

Maybe have second thought when they going to buy a cool film camera thinking it will be hard to find 35mm film for these. Probably your local camera store owner tell you that too. But 35mm films are not out of production. Both Fujifilm and few other companies still make 35 film and you can buy 35mm film from online stores for cheap. 

Fujifilm Superia X-TRA 400 35mm Film 4 Pack only $11 at Amazon ( Here )

So you can buy a Holga 135Tim Camera, Holga 12S flash and 4 packs of Fujifilm 35mm film from Amazon for total of $60 or much less with free shipping. I think it's a really cool bargain price for the whole set. Also it can be great way to let your kids spend more time outdoor than sitting from of computer playing games and do other not so good stuff.

Use iPad to view Film Negatives !

Now there is a great iPad / iPhone app for viewing Film Negatives. It's called Negative Viewer and you can download it FREE from iTunes App Store. All you have to do is goto Settings > General > Accessibility > Triple-click Home, and then select the Invert Colors option.

This feature can come to handy time to time. Like if you don't have a tool like Film Slide and Negative Viewer ( Here ) But these real Negative Viewers are quite cheap too. Very good one won't cost you more than $20 and you can find one for just around $10 too.

Future of Negative Film

Lomography based on 3 types of film. 35mm film, 120mm Negative film and instant film. Lomo fans don't bother about Digital cameras. So future of these film matters to everyone who connected with Lomography. Do the film has a bright future ? or film is already history ?

In the beginning of 2012 Kodak filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy and also announced   the discontinuation of its line of professional color reversal films. So you won't see Kodak 35mm film and 120 film after the current stock is gone. Fujifilms hasn't commented on their plans for 35mm film and 120 film but there are rumors their film department still profitable even thought there is a slow decrease in demand. Now Fujifilm have almost monopoly on 35mm market they might keep it alive. Also There are small scale Manufacturers like Ilford, Ferrania, Agfa etc. They will probably keep their production rolling too ( I hope) 

Also There is Lomography Co which sell their own Lomography film. But there is bit of controversy if they have their own factory or they just rebrand film bought from others.  Many believe they just re-brand 120mm film from Lucky (a China based company) and 135mm film from Ferrania ( Made in US or Italy). Check the box to see where film is made. Ferrania's original film making days are long gone so if your box says made in Italy that means you got a film from their last available stock (known as quality film).

But probably the growing interest on Lomography might save the negative film industry from a total collapse. Some still use 35mm film cameras for learning and teaching purposes but only Lomo fans use 120mm and 135mm film anymore. Even if you have film the biggest problem is you can't find many places where they develop these type of film. It's getting really hard to find places which do this and even though there is a grown in lomo camera users it doesn't help in this case a lot. It's getting harder and harder getting your film developed. New Cameras stores or drug stores don't do it and only you can get this done is in places which belongs to old camera owners or fans who try to stay faithful to industry. Maybe it future you will have to do it your self, getting your film developed like in old days.

Anyway Negative film won't die anywhere in near future. There are still manufactures who makes these film and there is a still enough demand to keep it going. Alternative Lomo fans have for this is using an Instant back for your Diana and Holga cameras. Both Fuji and Polaroid keeping the instant film and cameras going so you will able to use to to keep Lomography alive too. But no worries for that. Not yet ! Lets hope it will stay as that.