I've been looking for lomo camera that is not too expensive for a while now, and now I'm thinking about buying a Holga camera (for €45,-). I want to use it for my trips to London and Budapest this summer. I do have some questions, though...

1. Are you able to make these lovely coloured pictures when you're not a professional photographer? So, is it hard to do?

2. What's the difference between a 35 or 120mm and a 'pinhole'?

3. How much does it cost to develop the films? I've heard that you can develop some films for lomo camera's in any photoshop for normal costs??

I've been looking for the answers all over the internet but I can't seem to find them in normal language that a photography-noob can understand.
So a little bit of help would be really usefull, thank you sooo much in advance!!

p.s; Please bare in mind that I'm not a professional photographer and not in the process of becoming one, so please don't tell me these camera's are shitty and that I'm better of buying one for €500,-

120mm film is a medium format film. it is larger than 35mm which is considered a small format film. if you looked at 120mm next to 35mm you will see that 35mm has those perforations along the sides which 120mm does not.

obviously you can't go to the drug store and pick up 120mm film so you'll have to get it off the internet.

i don't have a 120mm camera yet but i get all my film developed at a professional camera shop who sends my b&w and other weird nonsense out to a lab. but that's just this camera shop. and it's not cheap either but the drug store always fucks things up. i just took some 126 film in and i'm scared to think how much it's gonna set me back when i pick it back up. i guess it depends on where you go?

all i know about pinholes is they don't have a lens. hopefully bigmuff will come in here and enlighten us.

__________________

1. Yep totally, no professional skills are necessary.

2. As Glampetals said 35 and 120 are two different sizes of film. 120 film is bigger so you get photographs with wonderful detail. The Holga takes 120 but it can be converted to 35mm. Pinhole is a whole different kettle of fish and I'm not very clued up on it.

3. This will vary depending where you go, you'll have to find a place that does develop 120 film first, ask around. It's maybe a couple of pounds more than 35mm, so not mind blowingly expensive.

Envoking the knowledge aquired from resident KR photography expert bigmuff, if you want a medium format camera you might want to look at Lubitels or Seagulls on ebay. They can be bought for around the same price as your Holga but are a better quality camera all round.

However, if you're using it on holiday you might be better off with the hand held Holga, as the Lubitel/Seagull are tricky twin lens waist level viewfinder bastards.

You might already have a 35mm SLR but if not I'd really reccomend buying one off ebay, you can get one for around £20-30 that will give you great quality photos, different from the Holga, and frankly you will look really cool with it
I can highly reccomend the Olympus OM series.

Again, if you're not sure about setting apertures and stuff the Holga might be a better option for now.

Thank you for your kind responses .

So a 120 mm film is a bit more difficult/expensive to develop, but how about a 35 mm?

EDIT: What if I post some pictures of what photos I want to make with my camera and you tell me what camera to buy? :P


I know this is a fisheye (and I'm not looking for a fisheye camera), but I really like the colours in this one


The light in this one, with the darker edges.

Well any photo shop does 35mm film. I don't know where you stay but if it's a city I'm sure there will be a photo shop that does 120 as well. If you're in the middle of nowhere you can send off film to be developed but I'm not sure who you would send it to.