Photocritic photography blog

From the same people that brought you the Lomo, the Holga is pretty much the same thing, but this time in medium format!

According to the Holga web site the camera is designed and engineered in 1982 in China. The name is derived from Cantonese; Ho Gwong, which supposedly means “Very Bright”.

There are two models of the Holga; The Holga 120 S features an extremely dark lens (f8), fairly wide angle (60mm) and that’s it. The Holga 120 SF is identical, but has a flash. Read the rest of the article »

Panoramas are an excellent way of seeing the world around you, but it’s not always easy to get them right. Stitching photos together is nearly impossible without decent software, and most decent software costs a metric crapload of money.

There are decent ‘real’ panorama cameras out there, of course, but cameras like the Hasselblad X-pan will set you back as much as a small car.

Luckily, there are other products out there… Read the rest of the article »

If you’re anything like me, your photography hobby is more expensive than an out-of-control crack habit. Spending a lot of money on buying top-end photography gear is all good and well (and it feels lovely to have equipment that does what you want it to), but there’s a lot to be said for making sure your equipment is safe.

Yes, folks, it’s time for the most boring blog entry you’re ever gonna find here on Photocritic: Insurance. Read the rest of the article »

I don’t normally write about camera equipment launches - there wouldn’t be much space for anything else on this blog if I did - but it’s rather worth noting that Canon are launching their brand new baby-brother of the digital SLR family, the 400D. Read the rest of the article »

Today you’re in for a real treat: A guest post by Vishal Bardoloi, on the joys of photography. (want to make a guest post? More info here!)

I’ve been a photography nut ever since laying hands on my dad’s copy of John Hedgecoe’s Complete Guide to Photography. So excuse me if I get a bit poetic.

The joy of photography is to find beauty in what you observe. It’s a pure mix of art and technique, and asks of its practitioner the highest aesthetic judgement. One must always be on the lookout for something interesting- a ‘moment’, a ‘face’, a story. Read the rest of the article »

In a completely unrelated post, I received a rather lengthy comment today. I suspect the main purpose of the post was to get a link to his site, but of course, Photocritic uses REL=NOFOLLOW (read why) on all the user-contributed links, so the spamming activity went without any particular merit.

What was insteresting, however, was that this person actually raised an interesting issue and an fascinating question. He says that 75% of people buy the wrong camera for his photography courses… Read the rest of the article »

If you’ve ever lost all your images of a memory card, due to failure, or by accidentally formatting it, you know how horrible it is. Back in the day, when you lose a roll of film to an accident, at least you can console yourself that you only lost up to 36 photos. Now, if you lose a large memorycard, you can lose hundreds, perhaps thousands of photos. Not very nice.

Luckily, your memory card is likely to not lose all of the images, even if some were to become erased or corrupted… Read the rest of the article »

As someone who occasionally dabbles in photography, I am frequently asked “I have £XXX to spend, and want to buy a digital camera. What should I buy?”. It’s a difficult question, especially because I’ve been known to spend high sums of money on digital photographic equipment, and I haven’t actually kept myself up to date with what’s stirring in the world of digital.

I am able to offer a few pointers, of course… Read the rest of the article »