Pinholes and Digital Capture

[waynec]

Anyone out there using pinholes with you digital camera? I'm thinking of getting one for my A6000 or for one of my lens adapters. Does anyone have any pictures?

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I've experimented with it a little. This was shot on a Canon EOS 5D mkII using a Finney pinhole body cap.

I've used the Finney caps on APS-C DSLRs and on Medium format film (Mamiya 645).

My opinion is that pinhole is best on large format film. The use of a small sensor makes the images just too soft. That's especially true of the APS-C digital. Those images were so bad that I don't think I even saved any. The example above is from fullframe digital and is usable. Below are a couple of examples from 645 film.

 

[narsuitus]

Anyone out there using pinholes with you digital camera?

I use pinholes with my digital cameras and my film cameras.

I love how easy and inexpensive it is to create a pinhole image using my micro 4/3 digital camera (image on left). However, the image quality leaves something to be desired.

I love the image quality produced by a 4x5 inch large format film pinhole camera (image on right). However, the long time and high cost it takes to produce the image leaves something to be desired.


Pinhole vs Pinhole by Narsuitus, on Flickr

 

[Papercut]

Sorry, no. Pinhole for me is a film-only arena -- and always medium or large format too. Might someday do pinhole on photo paper, but pinhole is definitely an analog only form for me.

 

[JoeV]

Pin wide body cap on LUMIX micro-4/3. The Pinwide cap is conical, recessing the aperture inside the lens mount close to the sensor.
P1140362 by Joe Van Cleave, on Flickr

You can see a dust spot on the sensor, upper right corner. Pinhole is a good way to examine your sensor for dust. I wish mirrorless cameras had a lens removal mode that closes the shutter so you can swap lenses. All it would take is a software upgrade.

 

[Papercut]

Pin wide body cap on LUMIX micro-4/3. The Pinwide cap is conical, recessing the aperture inside the lens mount close to the sensor.
P1140362 by Joe Van Cleave, on Flickr

You can see a dust spot on the sensor, upper right corner. Pinhole is a good way to examine your sensor for dust. I wish mirrorless cameras had a lens removal mode that closes the shutter so you can swap lenses. All it would take is a software upgrade.

Leave it to you, Joe, to have produced an exceptional digital pinhole image! (The dust spot here is not a big deal to me at least.) Well done! Might have to go look for the Pinwide!

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

Made one from a body cap for Sony A7. Couple of fun shots, then stopped using it. Here's one. DOF from Soda can 6" to neighboring house 250'.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Leave it to you, Joe, to have produced an exceptional digital pinhole image! (The dust spot here is not a big deal to me at least.) Well done! Might have to go look for the Pinwide!

That looks great! Did you make the pinhole cap yourself or did you buy it? If you bought it, can you tell us where you got it?

 

[JoeV]

Chris;

I bought it from Wanderlust: https://wanderlustcameras.com/products/pinwide.html

It gives a true wide-angle view to pinhole with micro-4/3, by recessing the aperture inside the lens mount. The downside is for color work, most sensors will give you purple colors along the edges of the image, due to the severe off-axis incident light angle, hence why I typically choose monochrome, which I post-process with a slight warm tone.

While I've been doing paper negative-based pinhole work for decades, the Pinwide system makes it a joy to snap away (on a tripod, of course) with a digital camera. I also need to makes more prints of these.

~Joe

 

[Ricoh]

MFT EM5, Skink Pinhle Pancake 0,18mm f/90

Bag Lady by -Steve Ricoh-

 

[Steve M.]

Any pinhole digital portraits out there? I found this one online made with a 35mm film camera. Very impressive!

https://www.google.com/search?q=dig...18#imgrc=00QCjf0IWix37M&imgdii=tyykIrbUuVQdjM