I’ve always wanted to use a pinhole camera so I got a little 6×6 Zero2000. The Zero2000 is a beautifully crafted little wooden box with brass trimmings. A tiny hole replaces the lens.I probably should have made one out of a coke can, but hey, I’m geeky, I like the gear.
Rather than explain it all there is a very good page on photo.net about pinhole photography.
Pinhole photography is probably one of things you either ‘get’ or ‘don’t get’. I most certainly ‘get’ it, as have many people, going right back to Leonardo Da Vinci and beyond (Ibn al-Haytham in the 11th century in fact). The camera obscura is, in my humble opinion, one of the most magical and entrancing optical devices ever invented.
The first images are a bit rough around the edges. I’ll get the hang of it the more I use it and find out what suits it best photographically.
The first thing to get used to are the insanely long exposure times. The ‘lens’ is f/139 equivalent, so using the sunny f/16 rule (1/100 second at f/16 in sunlight with 100 ISO rated FP4+)Â results in a 1 second exposure for the f/139 pinhole. However, I took it out in the evening, so it was nothing near approaching sunny f/16 and the exposure was supposed to be in the region of 8 seconds. At this point we need to know about reciprocity failure which is well complicated, although there are simpler explanations.
What I needed to know is that exposures over 4 seconds in FP4+ have to have the time multiplied by a factor to avoid reciprocity failure. 5 seconds becomes 13 seconds, 10 seconds becomes 31 seconds and so on up to a staggering 9 hours 20 minutes if the ‘normal’ exposure indicated on the meter is 1 hour.
Yesterday evening the meter was proposing 10-15 second exposures which translates as 31-55 seconds to compensate for reciprocity failure (and reciprocity is one hard word to type…)
As usual I trotted up to Point Hill avec chien to test the camera and also as usual I forgot to wind the film on once or twice. I almost always quite like these accidents:
The second thing to get used to is that there is no viewfinder so there is an element of guesswork and luck involved in what exactly will be seen on the finished photograph. Point and shoot in extremis. This became a little more critical later on (see following post). The long exposures obviously need a tripod but I was only carrying a little plastic Ultrapod tripod. The Ultrapod has the advantage of being able to be lashed to an upright support such as a fence which is OK if there is an upright, but eff-all use in an empty field, or Blackheath Common as becomes apparent shortly.
One thing you don’t have to be concerned about is focus. Because there is no lens there is an infinite depth of field (despite the nominal f/139) so everything is in focus. Don’t expect sharpness though, just relax and enjoy the dream
I feel like there is a lot of potential with this pinhole with careful choice of subject and good support. First choice of photos probably wouldn’t have been failing light in a howling gale in one of the windiest places in London. The absurd simplicity of the camera is very pleasing to me and I’m looking forward to running more rolls through it. In fact, a 5×4 pinhole is becoming very appealing too…
by skinnyvoice
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