qruyk12
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Going to try pinhole photography with the MP. Anyone tried this? Any film recommendations?
Pinhole photo help with the M camera
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Al Kaplan
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You might as well go with a slow fine grain film. You're going to be using a tripod and making long exposures anyway. The first order of business is making a clean pinhole with no ragged edges or paper fibers around the hole. The best paper might be difficult to locate these days, but it's the black paper interleaved with sheet film, but any thin black paper should work. Try an art supply shop.
Pick out a sharp embroidery needle and hold the eye end with pliers. Heat the tip of the needle red hot in the flame from a gas stove or butane cigarette lighter. These sources won't produce a lot of soot. With the red hot needle you can burn a nice clean hole through the paper.
If you have a lens with a removeable lens head, such as a 90mm Elmar or Elmarit, you can tape your pinhole directly to the end of the lens barrel. Just make sure you use black tape and that no light is sneaking in behind the paper. Another possibility is drilling about a 6mm hole in the bottom of a black plastic film cannister and fasten your pin hole over the hole, then tape and glue that to a piece of black cardboard with a hole in it a bit smaller than the cannister's mouth. Finally, tape that across the camera's lens flange.
Another way to go, while not strictly a "pin hole lens", is make your pin hole, trim the paper to the size of a filter for your lens, and place it so it's touching the front element when it's held in place by the filter. Leave the lens's own diaphragm wide open or you'll get horrible vignetting. This will probably give you the sharpest image while still getting the diffraction effects you'd expect from a pin hole.
Film suffers from what's called "reciprocity failure". Over the normal range of exposure times, say 1 second to 1/500 second, doubling the time gives you double the exposure. This isn't true outside of that range, and the further outside the range the more the relationship breaks down. Going from 30 seconds to 60 seconds might only give you another half stop of effective exposure gain, and perhaps less. What this means is that if you calculate your f-stop based on needle diameter (there are published tables of that based on which number needle you choose) and distance to the film and come up with f/250 you'll end up with an underexposed negative if you base your exposure time on that. On the bright side (no pun intended) you're not likely to see a difference in negative denstity between 40 seconds and 50 seconds. Precise exposure time becomes less critical.
If anybody is interested I can tell you about some fun things you can do with more than one pinhole over the lens.
Pick out a sharp embroidery needle and hold the eye end with pliers. Heat the tip of the needle red hot in the flame from a gas stove or butane cigarette lighter. These sources won't produce a lot of soot. With the red hot needle you can burn a nice clean hole through the paper.
If you have a lens with a removeable lens head, such as a 90mm Elmar or Elmarit, you can tape your pinhole directly to the end of the lens barrel. Just make sure you use black tape and that no light is sneaking in behind the paper. Another possibility is drilling about a 6mm hole in the bottom of a black plastic film cannister and fasten your pin hole over the hole, then tape and glue that to a piece of black cardboard with a hole in it a bit smaller than the cannister's mouth. Finally, tape that across the camera's lens flange.
Another way to go, while not strictly a "pin hole lens", is make your pin hole, trim the paper to the size of a filter for your lens, and place it so it's touching the front element when it's held in place by the filter. Leave the lens's own diaphragm wide open or you'll get horrible vignetting. This will probably give you the sharpest image while still getting the diffraction effects you'd expect from a pin hole.
Film suffers from what's called "reciprocity failure". Over the normal range of exposure times, say 1 second to 1/500 second, doubling the time gives you double the exposure. This isn't true outside of that range, and the further outside the range the more the relationship breaks down. Going from 30 seconds to 60 seconds might only give you another half stop of effective exposure gain, and perhaps less. What this means is that if you calculate your f-stop based on needle diameter (there are published tables of that based on which number needle you choose) and distance to the film and come up with f/250 you'll end up with an underexposed negative if you base your exposure time on that. On the bright side (no pun intended) you're not likely to see a difference in negative denstity between 40 seconds and 50 seconds. Precise exposure time becomes less critical.
If anybody is interested I can tell you about some fun things you can do with more than one pinhole over the lens.
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JohnTF
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I have fitted a pinhole over a 1/4" hole drilled in the center of a sm body cap, then screwed in to a sm to m adapter. Have not done much with it, but used it on a IIIf, and M8.
The M8 seemed to give better results, plus the instant results helps in the trial and error thing.
I used .002" brass shim stock, 400 wet or dry sand paper, and checked it with a microscope, or perhaps you can use a lens backwards to look for burrs that need to be polished with the needle with which you drilled the hole.
I believe Eric Renerts (sorry I did not check the spelling, leaving you to Google), is probably the leading author today.
Quite normally, folks use much larger formats as many pinhole images lose too much when enlarged. I have some from Prague and it was a strain to get a 3x5 print. Exposure of 30 seconds seemed to work with ISO 400.
Eric is quite nice, and very generous with advice, and his books are probably available in your local library. As I recall it was "Pinhole Photography, rediscovering an ancient technique", or there about.
I had some ortho 35mm film, and we made some interesting images using a Kodak 35mm film can, the image extends around almost to the very edge of the pinhole.
Anything with a lot of reflection inside can be sprayed with flat black paint.
Lots of old (look for a cheap lost cause) camera can work well, especially with a bellows, or a really tired Graphic? -- you can unscrew the glass and retain the shutter -- your imagination can carry you a long way.
I had not heard the paper trick, I wondered about using a lens and pinhole, I think it was more common at one time. Light passing through the very center of a lens should not be bent, but it will spread out quickly after passing the pinhole, it might be interesting to put a pinhole behind a lens?
Regards, John
The M8 seemed to give better results, plus the instant results helps in the trial and error thing.
I used .002" brass shim stock, 400 wet or dry sand paper, and checked it with a microscope, or perhaps you can use a lens backwards to look for burrs that need to be polished with the needle with which you drilled the hole.
I believe Eric Renerts (sorry I did not check the spelling, leaving you to Google), is probably the leading author today.
Quite normally, folks use much larger formats as many pinhole images lose too much when enlarged. I have some from Prague and it was a strain to get a 3x5 print. Exposure of 30 seconds seemed to work with ISO 400.
Eric is quite nice, and very generous with advice, and his books are probably available in your local library. As I recall it was "Pinhole Photography, rediscovering an ancient technique", or there about.
I had some ortho 35mm film, and we made some interesting images using a Kodak 35mm film can, the image extends around almost to the very edge of the pinhole.
Anything with a lot of reflection inside can be sprayed with flat black paint.
Lots of old (look for a cheap lost cause) camera can work well, especially with a bellows, or a really tired Graphic? -- you can unscrew the glass and retain the shutter -- your imagination can carry you a long way.
I had not heard the paper trick, I wondered about using a lens and pinhole, I think it was more common at one time. Light passing through the very center of a lens should not be bent, but it will spread out quickly after passing the pinhole, it might be interesting to put a pinhole behind a lens?
Regards, John
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