Pinhole day!!!

S

Skinny McGee

Guest
Hello everyone this a little off base here but wanted to share it.. i am going to enter some this year. I took a C-3 brick and made it into a homemade pinhole with a washer and a piece of beer can alum. There are some really cool shots on this website from all over the world... so if you have the time make up a pinhole camera a post something for pinhole day....
http://www.pinholeday.org/gallery/2004/index.php?page=1
 
Okay, I'll bite.

How do you ever get a wide-angle, almost fish-eye shot like this out of a pinhole?

http://www.pinholeday.org/gallery/2001/photo_5.html

When I was very young I knew a kid who made a pinhole camera out of a coffee can for a science project. It actually worked! Very small fuzzy prints, but it worked. The "shutter" was a piece of black tape he had over the "lens". :)
 
Great pinholes ... I do pinhole with my Hasselblad ((hole in the bodycapCan't afford the lenses, hehehe)) but I don't have the means to scan them otherwise I would definately contribute ...
 
The closer the pinhole is to the film, the wider the angle of view. To get the "fish-eye" effect in that photo, I think you need to curve the ends of the film towards the front of the camera. I think some of the swing-lens panoramic cameras use a curved plane, which gives that "stretched-out" look at the ends when you view the print (or scan) on a flat plane.
 
The "wide angle" look comes from a round camera ie. oatmeal box, film canister, paintcan, etc. The film is placed inside, opposite the pinhole, and allowed to follow the curvature of the can. If you take an old oatmeal box or similar shaped object, poke a neddle hole in the side, go outside and look into the box you will see the effect that you can catch on film.
Go here for complete DIY instructions:http://users.rcn.com/stewoody/

Todd
 
I have seen some of the photos taken with an oatmeal box and photo paper .
cut the oatmeal box in half length wise. put a piece of photo paper in the back along the curve then tape a flat piece of cardboard with your pinhole in it to the front light tight.. That gives a great panaramic.... as far as the pinhole I used a beer can alum. cut a piece out and rolled it flat with a pencil then drilled the hole with a very small needle....

I bought a cheap C3 brick and made the" Lackalens :with a washer and the alum. and super glue.
 
Hmmm... very interesting photos.

It seems the more I get interested in photography the more I look towards less complex. less automated cameras to make my images. First I tried medium format and now I'm starting to look at large format. Considering I mostly shoot subjects that don't move very fast under normal circumstances (landscapes, buildings, things like that), pinhole might just be fun to try out. I haven't worked with a pinhole camera since building a National Geographic World magazine cardstock kit which took 110 film many moons ago. I don't think I could come up with a cheaper way to get into large format either. :)

Anybody here done any pinhole work?
 
Folks,
A couple of points:
the very wide angle shot: if you use a "flat" film plane you can get about a 3:1 ratio. ie if your focal distance is 50mm, the negative can be about 150mm wide before major light fall off. If your are using a curved film plane(as in the "pringlematic" photo--I'm guessing that was made using a Pringle's potato chip can) then you can go alot wider.
I use either brass shim stock or disposable pie pan aluminum for my pinholes. Both are much easier to drill than beer(or soda)can aluminium.
I don't use sewing needles for drills because when I started to get interested in pinhole I didn't own a micrometer and couldn't tell what size hole I was getting. So I bought a set of very tiny drill bits. They are numbered 61-80 and they have served me well(the smallest is .0135" that is the #80).
There seems to be two major schools of thought about pinhole lenses: either "just poke a hole in something and shoot" or " I'm going to measure everything and get the optimum precision I can" An example of the former is a photographer I saw in Eric Rothery's book who built cardboard cameras with no pinhole in them until he shot them with a .22 caliber pistol. He used big camers/negatives so the almost 1/4 inch hole was was relatively "optimal". Slighly creepy self portraits I will search to see if I can find his pics online.
An example of the latter would be the Zone Zero series of cameras.
I fall some where in between those two examples as I will get a rough number thatgives me about f200 for whatever focal length I happen to be building and then use the closest drill I have- going smaller rather than larger if the calculated size is between two drill sizes.
I have not done much pinhole since this dern RF camera bug bit hard but I think I'm going to see how well I can combine the two.
An excellent pinhole site:http://www.pinholeresource.com/index.html
Rob
EDIT: Eric Renner NOT Rothery sorry
 
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Bender Photographic (http://www.benderphoto.com/) has an interesting looking kit made from hardwood which is <$100. Their large format stuff also looks interesting and pretty affordable if you don't mind a little labor.
 
dmr436 said:
Interesting site. :)

Jeez, $1100+ for a pinhole camera! A bit outa my league. :)
Click to expand...
Waay out of my budget as well! Lately I modify an extra body cap or tape a pinhole over the lens opening of one of my RF cameras. Before that I used to make various sized cardboard boxes. Typically I was into a pinhole out fit for about 5 or 10 $. I think the drill bits cost me 12.95 a few years ago and since I'm not drilling circuit boards they are still fairly sharp--most of the set I haven't used yet.
I have been toying with the idea of getting one of the 4x5 Bender camera kits and using it as a pinhole camera but I have time for only a few obsessions at once :bang: so it's not going to be soon.
Rob
 
Fedzilla_Bob,
There is a guy in Italy(I think) who sells them but I think they are VERY expensive.
This might be a better option:
http://www.lenoxlaser.com/pinholephotos/SLR_Pinhole_Camera_Kits.html
They have Leica M mount body caps listed dunno about screw mount but there is a phone # to "ask about other mounts" It would also be fairly simple to buy a pinhole from them and modify your own body cap(if you've got an extra)
Rob
 
Thank you for all of this information. I might try something like this with a defunct RF camera. Does anyone know what the optimal pinhole size and rough exposures should be for a 35mm camera with some kind of pinhole in the body cap?

I also saw that the dreaded Lomographers are charging UK£100 for a wooden box with a movable wooden shutter. Crazy.
 
rbiemer said:
" It would also be fairly simple to buy a pinhole from them and modify your own body cap(if you've got an extra)
Rob
Click to expand...

Actually I do, I find the LTM body caps on ebay in aluminum and use them on my Bessa and on my russians. My guess is that I would need to drill the cap and thread it (maybe) to accept the pinhole?

Thanks for the tip!
 
I have been tempted a couple of times by eBay auctions for pinhole-equipped body caps for my Pentax 67. They seem to go for around $35 as I recall. From what I've been able to conclude about pinhole photography, the larger the film the better the result. Better to have less enlargement, which seems to fuzz a print from 35mm film, for instance. The 6x7 format would be better, but if I were to go the pinhole route it might be with 8x10 enlarging paper, reproduced by scanning on a flatbed.
 
Zukiologist,
Try this page:http://www.stanford.edu/~cpatton/pinholemath.htm
There are lots of sites out there but this page is pretty straight forward.

Fedzilla,
I
'm not sure if their pinholes are in threaded mounts but you could drill a centered hole slightly smaller than the mount and glue or tape it(the mount) to the inside of the body cap. Or get fancy and drill a through hole big enough to clear the pin hole and drill a (concentric) rebate big enough for the mount.

Hope I've been helpful, folks!
Rob
 
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