Holgas beware!

[JohnTF]

I have a suggestion for solving the "the image is too dark to compose" problem. I got it from the color seperation filter gizmo from my 1950's vintage Kodak Precision enlarger, which consistsof a swinging plate below the lens with three holes, one for each of the color filters.

It should be easy enough to design and make a swinging, or rotating, thing that would have a large enough pin hole to see what's in the picture and one or more little pin holes for actually making the exposure. Just swing the one you want in front of the film. Polaroid used to make a gizmo when they first came out with "3000 Speed Film" that fit over the lens and had a flip-up "pin hole" for use with the ultra high speed film.

Al, I have seen rotary mechanisms for multiple pinholes, though I think most pinhole is much more seat of the pants, and am not sure a larger one would produce the same field of view? Some people mount a shoe, and try to find a viewfinder to match by trial and error.

The length of the bellows sort of lets you "zoom" if you are using a field camera.


Regards, John

 

[dazedgonebye]

Al, I have seen rotary mechanisms for multiple pinholes, though I think most pinhole is much more seat of the pants, and am not sure a larger one would produce the same field of view? Some people mount a shoe, and try to find a viewfinder to match by trial and error.

The length of the bellows sort of lets you "zoom" if you are using a field camera.


Regards, John

I've mounted viewfinders and that works well enough...but a preview pinhole that allows me to compose on the ground glass makes large format worth the effort in pinhole.

 

[JohnTF]

I've mounted viewfinders and that works well enough...but a preview pinhole that allows me to compose on the ground glass makes large format worth the effort in pinhole.

Good to know, I think the last time I used the 8x10 I had a dark cloth and I could see enough to get an idea of the field of view with the taking pinhole. About how much larger did you use? 2X?

I played around a bit with pinhole on the M8 and obviously chimping helps, but was surprised at how sensitive the sensor was for pinhole images.

I also really enjoyed using 35mm film, and planned on loading a negative storage sleeve with film strips into an 8x10 holder, processing it, and contact printing the negatives as a whole as you would a proof.

You could also use a plate holder, mounting sheet or roll film under clear glass to shoot a mosaic.


John

 

[charjohncarter]

venchka, that is cool. I did something similar with a Brownie Hawkeye lens (flipped):

and a shot:

 

[dazedgonebye]

Good to know, I think the last time I used the 8x10 I had a dark cloth and I could see enough to get an idea of the field of view with the taking pinhole. About how much larger did you use? 2X?

I played around a bit with pinhole on the M8 and obviously chimping helps, but was surprised at how sensitive the sensor was for pinhole images.

I also really enjoyed using 35mm film, and planned on loading a negative storage sleeve with film strips into an 8x10 holder, processing it, and contact printing the negatives as a whole as you would a proof.

You could also use a plate holder, mounting sheet or roll film under clear glass to shoot a mosaic.


John

I took a thin piece of aluminum and mounted it my skink thing. I punched a small hole through with the smallest tack I could find and then looked through the camera. I then kept enlarging the whole till the image degraded to the point that it was no longer useful for composition. Then, I made another one with a slightly smaller hole.
The final hole is quite large and the view through it is very, very out of focus...but it does serve for composition in any kind of decent light at all.

Your idea for a 35mm "proof sheet" is just great. I hope you do it and post. I'd love to see it.

 

[JohnTF]

""Your idea for a 35mm "proof sheet" is just great. I hope you do it and post. I'd love to see it.""

I have more projects than energy, but this one comes to mind now and again. I have a bulk roll of some kind of ortho 35mm (cannot resist these orphans at camera shows, but nothing is surfacing much any more), and some aerographic films, military surplus.

The advantage is that you can process in a tray by inspection, and well, not too many people are using ortho.

Years ago I found some ortho 8x10 sheet films, and they are in the glacier I call a freezer.

John

 

[venchka]

X-ray film is the budget champ for large sheet film. Fresh. New. $27/One HUNDRED sheets of 8x10 film. Easily cut down to 4x5. 400 sheets of 4x5 film for $27. Larger sizes are cheap too.

 

[JoeV]

I have a plywood 4"x5" pinhole camera that I built to accept sheet film holders; it has a removable aperture plate up front with which I can swap out a 1/8" diameter viewing hole with the pinhole. I've used this setup in landscape venues, such as Arches N.P. in Utah, to good effect. But the process of swapping aperture plates is a bit slow, though it renders accurate composition. And the dark cloth is steamy hot in summer desert climates.

My camera also has viewing dots on the sides and top, which correspond to the position of the pinhole and edges of the film as projected onto the sides and top of the camera; these have proven to be just as accurate as the viewing hole for judging composition, and much quicker to use, plus no dark cloth to fiddle with, and with my crude ground-glass viewscreen it's difficult to see the corners of the image.

~Joe

 

[JohnTF]

X-ray film is the budget champ for large sheet film. Fresh. New. $27/One HUNDRED sheets of 8x10 film. Easily cut down to 4x5. 400 sheets of 4x5 film for $27. Larger sizes are cheap too.

Should be very high silver, I was told they increased the silver to reduce the required exposure to x-rays.

Have no idea how fast they are going digital.

Just do not use a red filter. ;-)

Regards, John

 

[venchka]

X-ray film comes in blue & green flavors. ASA in the 50-200 range. D-76, Rodinal, Xtol & Diafine all work.

Filtering might be intersting.

 

[JohnTF]

X-ray film comes in blue & green flavors. ASA in the 50-200 range. D-76, Rodinal, Xtol & Diafine all work.

Filtering might be interesting.

I would think mostly Blue sensitive? Have never seen any sensitivity curves for it, am surprised it was so slow.

My friend used to snag some of the spoiled 8x10's from which I would remove the emulsions with bleach so I could use them for the overhead projector, the base had a tooth that would take the vis a vis markers really well.

Am thinking you could re-coat them easily, if it comes down to it.

Regards, John

 

[venchka]

You can buy either blue or green sensitive. Take your pick. The blue is ISO 50 and the green is 200.

There is a long thread with samples at the Large Format Photography Forum.

 

[Eugen Mezei]

The charts are set up for metering at f22. You meter at f22, it gives you the proper exposure considering your actual aperture and reciprocity.
I've gotten very good results with this.

Do I understand this right? You say you meter at f22 and take that value uncorrected for the much tinier apperture of your pinhole trusting that reciprocity would compensate?
But reciprocity is indirectly a function of the ambient light. You will have lesser reciprocity prolongation at a sunny day then on a cloudy one.

Eugen

 

[dazedgonebye]

Do I understand this right? You say you meter at f22 and take that value uncorrected for the much tinier apperture of your pinhole trusting that reciprocity would compensate?
But reciprocity is indirectly a function of the ambient light. You will have lesser reciprocity prolongation at a sunny day then on a cloudy one.

Eugen

No. The software converts your f22 reading to whatever is appropriate for your actual aperture while taking reciprocity in to account. It's just recognition that most meters will not provide a reading for f254 (or whatever silly small effective aperture you're using).

 

[venchka]

Use Fuji Neopan 100 Acros. No reciprocity failure under 16 minutes.

 

[manfromh]

Where does one buy this x-ray film? Would be nice to use for 4x5 (or bigger) pinholes.

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

Amazing!....after over a hundred years of perfecting optics, and getting superb image quality - we now want to go back to turning out crap pictures LOL!.....still - whatever turns us on eh! 😀
Dave.
P.S. Now everyone will jump in, and say what a miserable short -sighted old bugger I am, that does'nt appreciate 'art', but we're all entitled to our opinions - favourable or otherwise!.😛

 

[JohnTF]

Amazing!....after over a hundred years of perfecting optics, and getting superb image quality - we now want to go back to turning out crap pictures LOL!.....still - whatever turns us on eh! 😀
Dave.
P.S. Now everyone will jump in, and say what a miserable short -sighted old bugger I am, that does'nt appreciate 'art', but we're all entitled to our opinions - favourable or otherwise!.😛

Alright, more than hundreds of years, am pretty sure Galileo was working on optics, but pinhole predates it, so people have been perfecting pinholes much longer, unless you consider some of the FSU cameras I have bought which evidently allowed me to use both at the same time with the pinholes in the shutter.

The pinhole shot I posted in the Gallery was taken with a IIIc, that should count for something. ;-)

I have been looking for some vintage German oatmeal boxes to make a larger version. ;-)

Bokeh was off though.

John

 

[JohnTF]

Where does one buy this x-ray film? Would be nice to use for 4x5 (or bigger) pinholes.

I suppose you can date a nurse for starters, but it shows up at the photo shows on occasion, but less and less.

There were some nice folks from Pa. who used to have interesting lots of Gov. surplus films and papers, but they no longer go to the shows I still attend. I last bought some 24x30 paper from them for a photogram project. They used to send out a short catalog, if I can remember I will ask Igor when he gets back from vacation.

Photorama's Sam or Abe Vinegar might remember them, and Abe had some great rolls of surplus film at one time. It has to dry up from the source, cannot imagine the government still using film, unless there is some technical reason.

Interesting that they stored this stuff cold, and tested it now and again, stamping the test dates on the materials.

If the nurse works for a dentist the shots will be rather small. ;-)

I think deep in the deep freeze of mine is an 8 inch roll of Tri X, you never know when you might need some. ;-)

 

[venchka]

I'm one too

I'm one too

Amazing!....after over a hundred years of perfecting optics, and getting superb image quality - we now want to go back to turning out crap pictures LOL!.....still - whatever turns us on eh! 😀
Dave.
P.S. Now everyone will jump in, and say what a miserable short -sighted old bugger I am, that does'nt appreciate 'art', but we're all entitled to our opinions - favourable or otherwise!.😛

miserable short -sighted old bugger 😉

The pinhole arrived. I will use it this weekend in front of some antique 120 Kodak Gold color film.

GOOGLE knows where you can get fresh 8x10 blue or green x-ray film for the low low price of $27 per 100 sheets.

Enjoy!