Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day 2018

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Nomad Z

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Just a heads-up for those that might be interested. The day in question is the 29th of April, which should be plenty of time for those that don't have a suitable camera to acquire one, modify something, or make something. Details at the web site here...

http://pinholeday.org/

I found that my framing was a bit wonky last year, so I'm debating whether to update my converted Adox 6x9 folder...

6x9 Folder Pinhole 06.jpg

...to include some sort of viewfinder frame. On the other hand, something involving 5x4 and printing paper sounds interesting.
 
Thanks for the advance warning, Nick. I did it a couple of years ago with a pinhole body cap for my Pentax MX; IIRC it vignetted pretty badly on the body, but worked better with an extension tube.
 
This sneaks up on me every year and I end up missing it. This year I might get a pinhole for the Nagaoka and get some nice wide angle black and whites
 
I'm intending to shoot something this year :rolleyes: and will be using Ilford FP4+ for it. Having done a bit of background work at Mr Pinhole and Ilford, I see they brought in new reciprocity failure information for Ilford films last year, posted at the link below. It brings in a constant factor to be used for each film, rather than a graph as previously, but requires the use of a scientific calculator. My Samsung phone can deal with this in landscape mode as instructed, although the button is y to power x rather than x to power y as shown on the Ilford info.

https://www.ilfordphoto.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Reciprocity-Failure-Compensation.pdf
 
I noticed the factor thing in the Delta 100 datasheet the other day (when checking reciprocity of that and TMax 100 compared to Acros). Good to see they've listed the factors for all their films - a lot easier than having to look up a graph or try to remember numbers for typical exposures. I wonder what the factor would be for Fomapan 100...
 
If im remembering correctly its about 2 hours for anything over 30 seconds..... I may be exaggerating a little :D
 
Andysnap said:
If im remembering correctly its about 2 hours for anything over 30 seconds..... I may be exaggerating a little :D
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Ah well, many a true word spoken in jest. An exposure reading of 33 secs at f16 would give an exposure time of 2hrs 55 mins (175 mins) on my pinhole camera. Converted to seconds gives a figure of 10,500. Use the Ilford equation for the FP4+ official factor and you get an exposure time of 116,599 secs, or 32.388 HOURS :eek:

Putting that into perspective though, 1/15 @f16 would be 14 secs on my f233 pinhole and only 28 secs for FP4+. :D
 
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So I thought I'd have a go. I'm using a pinhole in aluminium tape on a 4x5 view camera, about 150mm focal length (although I can get anything from a bit over 50mm to 300mm if I want). According to calcs based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinhole_camera, the optimum hole size at 150mm is 1.43mm, assuming my calcs are reasonable.

I have tried a range of holes sizes, anything around 1.5mm seems blurred, anything below 1mm is incredibly dark on the ground glass and looks to have a massive vignette even though I have sanded the already thin tape down to probably less than 0.1mm.

I have absolutely no experience of what a pinhole view should look like, although my recollection from school physics is of something brighter than I am currently seeing. How bright an image should be expecting to see? and am I doing anything stupid?
 
I've never even tried to use a ground glass with a pinhole, they're dark enough stopped down to f32, let alone f125 or whatever you're going for
 
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Quickly typing on your phone and not looking = new fandangled techniques. I don't know if I've ever used the term flaxseed before, I'd normally use the term tasteless grit
 
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So here's a shot of the image on the ground glass, ignore the light leaks, I've made the ali foil so thin it's got other holes in it but the vignette is still HUGE, (BTW, garden shed, daffodils, bushes, trees)

IMG_8379.jpg
 
I've used a pinhole with my Pentax MX and never managed to get anything visible in the viewfinder!
 
Try using the calculator here...

http://www.mrpinhole.com/calcpinh.php

For 150mm, that reckons it should be 0.516mm diameter, giving f/291. For the pinhole material, try cutting up an aluminium fizzy drink can (using not your best scissors). It cuts easily, is about 0.1mm thick and quite robust. If you scan it at a known DPI, you can count the pixels and measure the diameter very accurately. If you know the diameter, you can work backwards and set the optimum distance to the image plane.
 
Nomad Z said:
Try using the calculator here...

http://www.mrpinhole.com/calcpinh.php

For 150mm, that reckons it should be 0.516mm diameter, giving f/291. For the pinhole material, try cutting up an aluminium fizzy drink can (using not your best scissors). It cuts easily, is about 0.1mm thick and quite robust. If you scan it at a known DPI, you can count the pixels and measure the diameter very accurately. If you know the diameter, you can work backwards and set the optimum distance to the image plane.
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So looks like I cocked up my calcs. The ali tape I am using is thinner than s drink can and I can poke a measured needle trough it so I can get pretty accurate hole sizes. And yes I cleaned the bur off it after making the hole.
 
This is turning into an obsession I'm now the proud owner of two pinhole mods. I found the best material to make a hole in is 120 roll film backing paper, seems to work well
IMG_8394.jpg IMG_8390.jpg IMG_8392.jpg
 
How do you do exposures on the Bronica with the lens removed? On a tripod and pull out the dark slide? Or can the mirror be used as a shutter of sorts?

Like the bayonet mount. :)
 
Given that it is a few seconds or more, I have been putting my finger over the hole, pressing the shutter button to put the mirror up (winding on the Bronica trips the mirror) then pulling the dark slide, removing my finger and counting he seconds, finger back on the hole, darkslide back in. And yes, on a tripod

All that said, I've finished the first roll this evening so I won't know until tomorrow or Friday if it works :)
 
sirch said:
And here's a couple off my first ever roll from a pinhole, my gob was smacked that anything came out at all :jawdrop:
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Oh, they certainly work. Have to be careful with wide angles, though...

Pinhole Shot With Fingers.jpg

That was when my shutter was a bit of tape over the pinhole. I'd put my left hand in front of the camera, pull the tape off with the right, and then move my left hand away and back for the actual exposure, then put the tape back on. Didn't move my left hand away far enough in the above.
 
I stood in the middle of this shot for about 5 seconds out of the 40, but no trace of me. I'll maybe try standing longer tomorrow. :)
2018-04-06-0001-copy-red-spotted-tp.jpg
 
Well, today's the day! However, it's really dull here, which is not the best situation for pinhole. And my camera is loaded with Tri-X, a bit dodgy on the reciprocity front... :(
 
Just tried looking through my pinhole "lens", which is a Holga HPL-P for Pentax. (At first I couldn't see any light at all, then I remembered it has a "lens cap" to remove!) It doesn't look like a clean hole to me, seems to be some sort of weird mesh across it. Is that some sort of diffraction artefact, or is it likely faulty? It would be great if someone could look through their pinhole "lens" and report back. Thanks
 
ChrisR said:
Just tried looking through my pinhole "lens", which is a Holga HPL-P for Pentax. (At first I couldn't see any light at all, then I remembered it has a "lens cap" to remove!) It doesn't look like a clean hole to me, seems to be some sort of weird mesh across it. Is that some sort of diffraction artefact, or is it likely faulty? It would be great if someone could look through their pinhole "lens" and report back. Thanks
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Afraid I can't help there Chris, since the pinhole on mine is only 0.3mm wide and I believe it to be unobstructed according to the original ad for it. I'd also need to partly dismantle it to get to the rear of the pinhole, so not keen on that as I'm going to be using it today. Weather up here today is very bright and sunny, so I think I'll leave it until later in the day to go out.
 
Peter B said:
Afraid I can't help there Chris, since the pinhole on mine is only 0.3mm wide and I believe it to be unobstructed according to the original ad for it. I'd also need to partly dismantle it to get to the rear of the pinhole, so not keen on that as I'm going to be using it today. Weather up here today is very bright and sunny, so I think I'll leave it until later in the day to go out.
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Mine is supposed to be 0.25 mm as well, but with it off the camera I was able to see the outline of the building opposite quite clearly (and the right way up, which surprised me) with my eye right behind it. Moving a little bit away shows this net-like effect.
 
It will look right way up if your eye is dead close. Mine looks fuzzy when held up to the light at a few inches, but fine through a magnifier. Check with a magnifier, or just bung some film through it - light getting through is a good sign.
 
Not sure we have a magnifier, or I don't know where it is. The odd thing is the defects stay in the same place even when rotating the pinhole. This rather suggests to me it's my eyes rather than the pinhole itself that are producing the effect. I have my eye about 1 cm away...
 
ChrisR said:
Not sure we have a magnifier, or I don't know where it is. The odd thing is the defects stay in the same place even when rotating the pinhole. This rather suggests to me it's my eyes rather than the pinhole itself that are producing the effect. I have my eye about 1 cm away...
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Sounds like it'll be fine.

Exciting Voidomat action shot at half-way through the roll...

Voidomat In Action.jpg
 
Remembered the reversed lens trick, so got out a 50mm and looked at the pinhole reversed. At the appropriate distance it looks perfectly round, move away from that point and the artefacts appear. I was starting to think they were visible diffraction fringes, but if so they'd be visible in the in-focus images as well. I guess it's some sort of strange optical effect...
 
Its dull down here as well but it is what it is so we'll see what comes out.
 
Voidomat in action again, just before exposing the last shot...

Voidomat In Action 2.jpg

I was getting exposures of 3 to 4 secs in the sunny conditions, so decided to try and get some motion blur on the sailboats.
 
ChrisR said:
Well, today's the day! However, it's really dull here, which is not the best situation for pinhole. And my camera is loaded with Tri-X, a bit dodgy on the reciprocity front... :(
Click to expand...

Well I've got the opposite problem, it's been surprisingly bright today and I'm relying on finger over the hole as a shutter. I can't guess in 1/10ths,so I am going to try to get out later when hopefully it will be down to a second or so.
 
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