My 4x5 pinhole camera

[tjleasa]

I love this pinhole thread. A couple years ago I had the idea to make a digital pinhole camera using the cap for my DSLR. I drilled a larger hole in the cap and covered it with a homemade brass shim pinhole. It actually worked. (it was also very effective at showing every single bit of dust on my sensor). Now I want to try it again!

[lairdknox]

@hide

Wow, there’s so much here I don’t know where to begin! But most of all, thanks so much for sharing your experience and insight.

Thanks, I’m always worried I over share. I don’t want to hijack a thread but I like talking about projects and solutions. That is the biggest thing I miss about my gallery - talking to people about the art and the process.

@hide

I too am interested in doing multiple pinhole in the near future. Very cool! There is so much we can play with, the possibilities are endless!

You can even add small baffles between the pinholes to make it work more like a segmented lens. Kind of like an insect’s eye. I haven’t tried it yet but it would be pretty easy to make something on the GF. Here’s an example of such a camera. Instead of blending the images like mine did it gives you distinctly different images. I think it would be fun to adjust the height of the baffles to get distinct images that blur into the adjoining images.

@hide

I am intrigued by the picture of the plane. At first glance it seemed like a model. There is an unworldly character to its “air.” I guess that’s the ethereal quality of pinhole photography. What bird is that BTW? PV-2 Harpoon?

I really don’t know anything about the plane. It was at Eagle Field in California. Eagle Field is an old training base that was bought privately in the 80s(?). The owner would use the runway to do drag races and air shows. He had a small museum setup in one building and a bunch of cars stored in the old hanger. He also built a clubhouse in there to get away from the wife. It was more than a man cave, it was huge.

I went out there for a night photography workshop hosted by Troy Paiva (Instgram). I wasn’t there for the workshop but for the access to Eagle Field. The workshop was great but I had already worked with Troy on another workshop. It was a great experience.

You can see the wires hanging down by the landing gear. The plane was mostly gutted and now serves as a photo op.

@hide

Those spots: I have two negatives that had similar spots and on close inspection I noticed they cast shadows! I am not sure what they were but they seemed to be on the negative itself and substantial enough to cast micro shadows. Sand, perhaps? Sand gets everywhere where I live.

When you mentioned sand I thought that was a good possibility - but on second thought the sand would create black spots not white. I loaded the camera up in Vegas and drove to CA and back. I think it sat for a few weeks before I got a chance to develop it so who knows? I can rule out stars since it was a 20+ minute exposure.

@hide

I guess what makes pinholes so much fun is that technology (in the sense that it implies modernity) is far, far less important than ingenuity. Anyway thanks so much for sharing. I’m working on a compact pinhole I hope to take on a trip soon.

I wish I had seen this post earlier. I’m heading to Colorado in about a week. It would have been fun to make a pinhole to take with me. I don’t think I’ll have the time to get something done before then. Maybe I should break out my 120 year old Rochester Optical King camera.

Have a great trip and I hope you get a lot of pictures.

@hide

I’ll be taking this camera on the trip and I’ll post new photos to this thread.

Looking forward to it.

[lairdknox]

@tjleasa

I love this pinhole thread. A couple years ago I had the idea to make a digital pinhole camera using the cap for my DSLR. I drilled a larger hole in the cap and covered it with a homemade brass shim pinhole. It actually worked. (it was also very effective at showing every single bit of dust on my sensor). Now I want to try it again!

Since you have a fixed focal length in that case (pinhole to sensor distance) you could use the Mr Pinhole calculators to calculate the best size hole. Or you can use the math in the video that @hide posted.

Another thing you can try if you haven’t already is to use something like a 50mm lens and make a pinhole style cover for it. Then you can cut a small shape instead of a pinhole. Hearts are used a lot. In this case you are still using the 50mm lens to focus but the shape changes the bokeh. Out of focus points of light will become hearts, or whatever you cut into the cover.

You can use black cardstock for the cutouts. These are simple to create on the Glowforge.

[evermorian]

@lairdknox

the shape changes the bokeh

q.v.:

Bokeh Inserts For Your DSLR Camera

Since I get inspired to do this every couple of years, so I wanted to show a cheap, fast, and easy way to accomplish a cool bokeh effect. Note: this assumes you consider a $2500 laser and 10 cents worth of material cheap. Here are the filters: [image] Thrilling, right? This is what they do. Hearts (top right): [DSC_3118] Clover - Clubs (bottom right): [DSC_3116] Cats (bottom left): [DSC_3119] You might have noted that I missed weeding a bit of the cat’s tail. It shows in the photo abov…

[evermorian]

The long exposure times would limit the range of subjects but, I always thought it would be fun to shoot pinhole stereo pairs.

[tjleasa]

@lairdknox

you could use the Mr Pinhole

Yes, thank you for sharing the Mr. Pinhole link. I thought that would be helpful.

As far as shaped apertures. I have a Lensbaby set up with a bunch on magnetic disks. It also has a few blanks. I wonder if laser would cut…

[lairdknox]

Here is one more interesting thing I came across while looking for the multiple pinhole example:

This inflatable dome is actually a giant pinhole camera

[brokendrum]

@rbtdanforth

I found this:

I can still see all the numbers, but I am pretty sure I am suppose to.
In the 70’s I was doing electrical tool and die for aircraft in Kansas and I came across a study to find out why all the old pilots were blue eyed.
Answer was right in front of them. The aviation testing has a color aspect and further research showed blue eyes are immune to color degradation that all other eye color males get by age 30 and onward. So blue eyes for the win.

Regardless, the wife still asks me if I am going to wear this with that, so it isn’t about color at all, right?

[rbtdanforth]

@brokendrum

Answer was right in front of them.

Why were they of a group? Because that was who they hired.
Color blindness is a common genetic “misprint” not related to eye color. If anything. darker eye color reduces scattered light getting through providing more protection from UV damage and glare,

source

Those with darker colored eyes experience less visual discomfort in bright, sunny conditions. Also, darker irises reflect less light within the eye, reducing susceptibility to glare and improving contrast discernment—so people with darker eyes may have better vision in high-glare situations, such as driving at night. Source

What does happen to most folk is damage to the cornea (in front of the iris) by infrared and UV that yellows the clear cornea (as well as physical damage like sand) that they can clear up by surgery. I had enough physical damage on my right eye that glasses could not correct so I had surgery there, So now I can see the difference that the untreated eye sees much more yellow but it did not have the physical damage.

Weirdly my brain has made much adjustment so it is hard to even notice now.

[djfb]

@brokendrum

Regardless, the wife still asks me if I am going to wear this with that, so it isn’t about color at all, right?

That phrase must be in the “Wife Manual.”

[brokendrum]

@rbtdanforth

not related to eye color

I am not going to wear google out trying to prove or disprove a life experience from something I related to 50 years ago, but…
Even in the 70’s the researchers doing studies were fairly smart and thorough. Further causation is the fact that I am now over 70 and my blue eyes still see all colors.
Regardless, if you want to refute what I stated, have at it.

[rbtdanforth]

@brokendrum

if you want to refute what I stated,

Not about your experience. But my biology is better than my electronics, and my experience would have seen no yellow until I experienced not having it, and even now the brain has adjusted quite a lot.

[hide]

@evermorian

I always thought it would be fun to shoot pinhole stereo pairs

Hmmm… last year I started a small company that creates VR content. It would be a very cool analog tie-in to have stereo pinholes photos in the office along with those old wooden viewing glasses (there’s a great scene in “Blue Lagoon” where the castaway kids use one)! I think you may have just ignited something in me…