Which pinhole?

Phantomas

Phantomas

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Since my recent vigorous search for an affordable R-D1has left me with nothing (found a couple of good offers abroad, but unfortunately sellers preferred to deal locally) I decided to give up that crazy idea for a while and instead look at the opposite end of technology – pinhole.
I think I’m going to buy a nicely made model, which I have come across on internets costing about $100-150. I’m fully aware that such camera can be made with as little as cereal box and a piece of aluminum sheet (soda can), but on the other hand $100 won’t break the bank so I’d prefer something pretty and solid.
Before I go and enter “pinhole camera” into Google search, could some of you give recommendations for a good manufacturer/dealer? Few days ago I’ve seen a thread with a link to one (nice wooden boxes) but can’t find it back…
Please give your recommendations (and by the way, I’d rather not spend the money in Lomography store).

Thanks!

(It will come in especially handy in my upcoming tour across Croatia as I plan to shoot quite some landscapes).
 
Either 35 or 120. 35mm would be more economical, but I can imagine 120 would look nicer.
Not touching sheet film just yet J
 
I think I just found the reference I was looking for. Zero Image, no? I think their Zero 135 or 2000 could do the trick.

By the way, Dazed, saw your Graflex pinhole as well. Nice stuff!
 
Phantomas... don't forget that this coming sunday is World Wide Pinhole Day...

www.pinholeday.org

(for me, I have a few different pinholes on lensboards for the speedgraphic 4x5, and a 5x7 wooden box wide angle pinhole camera)

-Brian
 
Phantomas said:
I think I just found the reference I was looking for. Zero Image, no? I think their Zero 135 or 2000 could do the trick.

By the way, Dazed, saw your Graflex pinhole as well. Nice stuff!
Click to expand...

Thanks,
That graflex is over-engineered for it's function, but I have to say it was a pleasure to put together and to use.

I can't speak to any of the manufactured pinhole cameras except to say I've probably seen good images out of most of them. It's not a technological miracle to make a pinhole camera, so you would expect them all to be functional.
If you like wide and medium format, you might consider a project such as this one:
752404848_346cb8ca95.jpg


Start with a beater 6x9 folding camera, end up with a 4Xmm 'ish pinhole.
 
I've had great fun converting old box type cameras. You only have to push out the lens and glue in a piece of aluminium with a hole in it. You could even buy a laser cut hole. (Well, you buy the metal around the hole, but you know what I mean...)

I made lots of them and picked the roundest. There's a few sites which deal with this and have pin hole size calculators. Many get hooked on paper negs, hmm big negs...

Dave
 
Thanks.
Besides wanting esthetically pleasing little box, I’m a bit concerned about making the right size/shape hole (and I assume that’s of a high priority if you want to get the exposure right based on accurate f size of the hole.
I do have a drill, but do not have any proper measuring tools to ensure smooth and precise job is done.
 
Phantomas said:
Thanks.
Besides wanting esthetically pleasing little box, I’m a bit concerned about making the right size/shape hole (and I assume that’s of a high priority if you want to get the exposure right based on accurate f size of the hole.
I do have a drill, but do not have any proper measuring tools to ensure smooth and precise job is done.
Click to expand...

I confess to buying my pinholes from lennox laser. That makes up the most expensive part of the camera, but they are very high quality.

I can understand wanting the pretty box to shoot with. I'm sure they can be inspiring.

I think the shutters tend to be different across the brands, but otherwise, they seem to have pretty much the same features.
 
Phantomas said:
Thanks.
Besides wanting esthetically pleasing little box, I’m a bit concerned about making the right size/shape hole (and I assume that’s of a high priority if you want to get the exposure right based on accurate f size of the hole.
I do have a drill, but do not have any proper measuring tools to ensure smooth and precise job is done.
Click to expand...

I spent a few years working with students and on my own with pinhole.

First, there was little, well, actually, no quality difference between laser drilled holes, and ones carefully made with .002 Brass Shim Stock.

Brass is much easier to use than aluminum, and I ended up using various sewing needles for drilling, and 400 grit automotive abrasive paper to clean the brass up.

I have access to microscopes and it was part of the school process, so I used one on low power to check the results, you can easily see the difference between a well polished round hole and a piece of now scrap brass. You can probably get by with other magnifiers to check your work. You can polish the opening with the needle and resand. Takes only a few minutes.

Eric Renner and his site is the holy grail of pinhole information.

I bought several of the commercial cameras, from cardboard kits to the 4x5 wood cameras. All produced nice results.

I also made pinholes fitted to Leica body caps drilled out. This type of 35mm does not lend itself to enlarged pinhole images. We made some out of 35mm film cans, the image in a circular camera extends from about 1mm from the hole all the way around in a sort of oval image, interesting. I bought a case of new 1 quart, (1 L) paint cans, which got a 1cm hole in the side, some paint, and a pinhole fitted.

I found a military surplus can of a roll of ortho film which can be handled in normal safe light, so it can be cut and fitted to almost anything. I was carrying a military flashlight with the red filters fitted so I could load and change film if I am traveling. Film was cut in to sheets and carried in an envelope.

As Graphics around here, especially without lens, go for almost nothing, ($50?) it would be foolish to overlook the ease and convenience of using them, plus if you have the older one with focal plane shutter it is a plus, though most of my exposures are 30 seconds or longer so a bit of black electrical tape works fine. Some other tapes transmit light.

Add a 6x9 roll film back, and you have more options, plus folded up with the handle, they are easy to carry about.
I used a Polaroid back as well.

I also shot with an 8x10 wood field camera, less than $100 here often, and again I had some ortho film. Images were close to those of a lens image.

The ortho film is great because you can develop with Dektol or any paper developer and develop by inspection, and you have a large negative.

You can move the pinhole closer or further to "zoom".

I never had trouble finding old plate cameras in Europe, just trouble carrying them home, and trying to adapt them to film.

My friend Lukas in Prague put in a glass plate or piece of plastic, and wedged the sheet film in on top.

You can recoat some old glass plates, or tape some ortho film inside and use almost any holder with no worries about focus.


These cameras can easily be converted back to lens use.

Bring along a nice figure model, large camera, big tripod, and bottle of wine, sounds like a plan.

My old LTM pinhole seems to work better with the M8, but it might be the chimping aspect that helps.

Have fun, sorry for the long post, hope there is something in it to help you decide on which path to follow.

Besides, a friend in California just bought the RD 1 Igor had here, so when one door closes... It was on his web page and he just reduced the price to move.

Regards, John Have fun.
 
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Phantomas,

I usually hand-make my own pinhole cameras, but the one that I did buy is a modified Holga from HolgaMods. I bought the deluxe $62 version. A cheaper no-frills pinhole version exists for about $22.

http://www.holgamods.com/

I could be just unlucky, but I've had various mysterious light leaks on my "Pinholga" - even when I tape up the body. I suspect it is coming from behind the shutter, but I can't be sure. There is a "PinHolga" flickr group and I don't see light leaks on most of those images posted, so YMMV.

Anyway, Holgas are less expensive to modify yourself, or you can buy them with the pinhole modification from various sources.

Good luck!

rt :)
 
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Almost any camera can be easily converted to do pinhole. But if you're interested in the sharper end of pinhole imagery, you'd do well to go with a format larger than 35mm, for two reasons: 1) less enlargement of the resulting image; 2) larger formats imply a longer "focal" length; the formula for optimal pinhole size render a larger focal ratio (f-number) with longer lengths, resulting in sharper images (up to a point.)

This is why 120 format seems to be a good compromise between portability and number of images, and image quality.

I'll ditto the suggestion to make your own pinholes from thin sheet brass. I use a simple slide viewer loupe to inspect my work. A sewing needle and fine emery paper.

To measure the pinhole diameter the easiest is to place the piece of brass adjacent to a metric millimeter scale, with the pinhole between two lines on the scale, and approximate the size in fractions of a millimeter (i.e. 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 mm, etc.) using a viewing loupe. Backlight the hole so you can easily see it. This is plenty accurate for the purposes of metering one's exposure, so you needn't go to the trouble of enlarging the pinhole in an enlarger, or scanning and photoshopping the hole to measure its size.

~Joe

PS: I hope everyone had a good WPPD yesterday. I did still-lifes in my backyard using 8x10 paper in a black foamcore box camera. Fun stuff.
 

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I think everything necessary has been said so I will just give my vote.
Simplest way is a pinhole lens cap for a film slr.
I do not think that digital goes well with pinhole, a clash of technologies I guess but I have never been very happy with digital pinhole results.
If you want to buy a complete ready made, I think they all work well enough, Holga is a popular one but Zero must stand out as the quality kit, you will not be disappointed with one of these simple and beautifully made cameras and they come in a range of formats.

 
only thing left to say is that if you're interested long-term in pinhole image-making check out the forums at http://www.f295.org/Pinholeforum/forum/Blah.pl?

there's a lot of very helpful and knowledgeable people there -- some of them have forgotten more about pinhole than I will ever know :)

and, if you want to buy/use a pinhole camera that is as aesthetically pleasing as it is functional, you will not be disappointed by any of the ZeroImage products. I have, and use frequently, a ZeroImage 612B (multi-format: 6x4.5, 6x6, 6x7, 6x9, and 6x12) and it is really a joy to use. My WWPD submission was shot with it: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shudaizi/3480658149/
 
If you check into the plastic camera realm you will find lots of affordable choices. Some have pinholes as aperture choices and such. I really enjoy using my Holga WPC, its light, easy to use, has a couple nice features like a built-in bubble level, framing guides, etc... Shoots up to 60x120mm images on 120 film. All for around $50usd.
 
You would be very happy with a Zero Image Pinhole camera. I had a 2000 and now have a 6x9 which can be easily adjusted to also take 6x6 images.
 
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