Pinhole Film Choice

[Rockman]

I am thinking about taking a series of photos in forests and to make it more interesting I was thinking about using a pinhole camera to take photos that are more painterly than pin sharp. I want to have a vivid appearance to the photos and I am trying to decide what film I should choose. I was thinking about using Velvia, but I am concerned that the tolerance to approximate exposure times would be too tight to get good exposures. Can anyone recommend a good film (negative or slide) to use?

Thanks

Mike

 

[robhooley167]

When you do long exposures like in pinhole images, you will enter the realms of most films reciprocity failures. This means that some films wont behave in the same way as they would at short exposures, for example Velvia will exhibit colour casts on long exposures and some films will underexpose as the long exposure de-sensitises them.

Some modern films will be better suited to pinhole imaging than others
Fuji Acros 100 is a black and white film which has very manageable reciprocity failures up to about 5 minutes

Colour wise i think Kodak Portra 160 or 400 has good reciprocity (not used it myself) but it is quite a muted and neutral film
Kodak Ektar 100 doesnt have very good reciprocity characteristics and will go a bit green with long exposures

I'm sure someone will be along shortly with more experience than me in these matters

 

[RaglanSurf]

I recently shot some outdated Fuji Superia X-TRA 400 in my pinhole camera for Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day

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Zero Image Pinhole Superia X-TRA 400-2 by Raglansurf, on Flickr[/IMG]

I was quite pleased with the results

 

[Morinaka]

If you want to know look up the datasheets for specific films as it usually has a table for exposure compensation with regards to reciprocity.

In B&W Fuji ACROS 100 is king as you can do exposures up to 15 minutes or more with only a half stop of compensation. But the datasheet for Velvia 50 say you need a +1 stop compensation by 32 seconds and says don't bother after that.

I would try and recommend one but colours films are pretty useless after 30 seconds exposure, Kodak doesn't seem to bother suggesting compensation times in its datasheets and tell you to experiment so stick to Fuji if you need to be sure.