Pinhole Photography

Zero Hour · #1 03-03-2006, 05:44 PM

Hullo folks.

As I said in a few previous posts, I really encourage non-traditional (for these forums) art here. With that said one of these art forms is photography. I've posted some of the photos I've taken with my 35mm SLR.

But this time I was to introduce you to a different form of photography. This is Pinhole Photography. It's pretty much the basics of all photography. The process which is used to capture the images is explained in the wikipedia article which I've linked to.

Here are some examples of photos I've taken with my pinhole camera, aswell as a picture of my camera.

Zero Hour · #2 03-03-2006, 05:55 PM

So here's the camera. It's pretty simple - I made it out of photo mounting board and book binding duct tape.

In the first picture you can see the pinhole and my pseudo "shutter" (That being the piece of duct tape which covers that little metallic bit, which is actually a piece of a iced tea can with a hole poked in it for the pinhole). Aswell as the lid I made to cover the hatch at the top for access to the photo paper.

In the second you can see what the camera would look like in the dark room - open with a piece of photo paper in it. I just put a picture in there so you can see how the paper sits when there's paper in there.

Tom · #3 03-03-2006, 06:39 PM

I remeber doing this at school years ago :P Nice ^_^

Splke · #4 03-04-2006, 03:05 AM

I really like the 4th picture. Though I still don't understand exactly what pinhole is, I'm reading the wiki and trying to understand.

God I love the 4th though.

excaliber7388 · #5 03-04-2006, 03:27 AM

the pinhole camera uses a small hole to collect the light, and focus it (its reversed on the paper) The light then hits photographic paper, creating the image. (This takes a few seconds for larger pinhole cameras, but can be very good.) I made a modified design from a film canister. (because it's so small, and the exposure time is so short, the vibration of opening it caused the image to shake, and have poor quality, so I had to create a new type of 'shutter' if i can find the damn thing i'll post a few pics and a pic of the camera). On a more revalent note, noce job. Some of the last ones, the exposure time was a bit long, but the first two have really good detail, I like really them. Because of the varying exposure time, this can be difficult, but it leaves room for some really cool stuff. Anyway, nicely done

CidNight1142 · #6 03-04-2006, 09:48 AM

Really cool, when I go home for spring break I'm gonna rig up my pentax and try it out.

Zero Hour · #7 03-04-2006, 07:19 PM

Personally, I'm not a fan of the quality of my shorts as far as contrast goes. This was my first time using it, so I'm still working on exposure times. Generally, I need about 4 minutes exposure inside and 30 seconds outside.

I hope to get the exposure pretty exact, then I can enjoy the funky optical distortion from the pinhole

Zero Hour · #8 03-09-2006, 05:47 PM

Well, I made a new pinhole for the camera because the old one was 3x too big. Sadly, making the new pinhole 3x smaller made the prints considerably smaller aswell.

Here are some photos I took with the new pinhole:

CidNight1142 · #9 03-09-2006, 09:22 PM

I like the second one alot, nice framing.

excaliber7388 · #10 03-09-2006, 10:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zero Hour

Well, I made a new pinhole for the camera because the old one was 3x too big. Sadly, making the new pinhole 3x smaller made the prints considerably smaller aswell.

Here are some photos I took with the new pinhole:

Very nice
With the film canister one, I was able to use the enlargers in the dark room to enlarge it as if it was notmal film (tool a lot of trial and error, but it worked) I hope i can find a few of them

but anyway, nice job

Zero Hour · #11 03-09-2006, 10:41 PM

I don't want to switch to film because the only type I can get is 35mm (our professional photography store is a joke, I live in a small town). If I was going to shoot film I'd want to shoot 8x10 negatives.

So I'm stuck with paper ):

excaliber7388 · #12 03-09-2006, 10:44 PM

Actually, i used photo paper to make them

i just treated the photo paper like film when enlarging it (we have our own dark room, and quite a few enlargers).

Zero Hour · #13 03-09-2006, 10:46 PM

We also have our own dark room, but it's going to be closed after this semester. They're switching to digital.

excaliber7388 · #14 03-09-2006, 10:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zero Hour

We also have our own dark room, but it's going to be closed after this semester. They're switching to digital.

Thats too bad, the dark room is fun

But yeah, we did some digital.

Zero Hour · #15 03-09-2006, 10:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by excaliber7388

Thats too bad, the dark room is fun

But yeah, we did some digital.

I was in and out of the dark room for so long yesterday I started getting sick. It was horrible. I think whoever had mixed the fixing solution put too much fixing chemical in and not enough water.

Ahwell, I have some plans for making my own CCD Digital camera