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| Nikon D610 + Lensbaby Pinhole/Zone Plate Optic 1/60 @ f/177, -0.67, ISO 6400 |
News, Muse and Reviews for Aspiring Lensmen.
Showing posts with label Pinhole Photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pinhole Photography. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Happy Worldwide Pinhole Day!
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| Nautica |
Today, April 25, is Worldwide Pinhole Day. I had grand plans of attempting an infrared pinhole landscape, but the ensuing rain ended all that. So I decided on an indoor still life instead.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Getting Back to Basics
Before the lens came the aperture. The very first camera, the camera obscura or “dark box”, is nothing more than an aperture on one side of a light-tight box. The camera doesn’t get much more basic than that. Hence, my fascination for pinhole photography. If you can take a compelling photograph with a pinhole camera, you can take a picture with just about anything.
Pinhole Photography really makes you think about the image you’re capturing, not the equipment you’re capturing it with. There’s only one setting to master; time. But there’s so much to be learned—patience! With time and patience, you can capture an image using a box with a hole in it. With time, patience and thought, you can create a photograph.
Being a completely different medium than film, digital photography requires almost no time and patience to capture an image. But to create a digital photograph, you need just as much if not more thought. The good news is once you get to know your equipment, the thought goes into the making of the photograph, and not the process of capturing the image.
Pinhole photography lends itself well to the digital medium. It requires just as much time, patience and thought as its film-based counterpart, but affords more potential for free experimentation. The experience gained can then be applied to capturing pinhole images on film, with a much greater resolution.
I find the softness of pinhole photos intriguing. To me, they’re not exactly out of focus; they’re out of time. Because they can depict extended periods of time in a single frame, they seem to come from a different dimension. Even sharp pinhole photos taken in large format with an optimally-sized aperture have a quality I cannot quite describe.
So, now that I have a digital camera with an interchangeable lens that I can replace with a pinhole, I can become truly prolific in my pinhole work. With no reciprocity failure, the exposure time has been substantially shortened. With no color shifts, color pinhole photography becomes much more feasible. Under the right conditions, I can even do it handheld. The need to compare it with its film counterpart will no doubt resurrect my interest in 4x5 pinhole.
But, I will need a remote cable release (which is now wireless, of course) so there’s another thing to order.
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| Color photo taken with a homemade pinhole camera on 4x5 film |
Pinhole Photography really makes you think about the image you’re capturing, not the equipment you’re capturing it with. There’s only one setting to master; time. But there’s so much to be learned—patience! With time and patience, you can capture an image using a box with a hole in it. With time, patience and thought, you can create a photograph.
Being a completely different medium than film, digital photography requires almost no time and patience to capture an image. But to create a digital photograph, you need just as much if not more thought. The good news is once you get to know your equipment, the thought goes into the making of the photograph, and not the process of capturing the image.
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| Color photo taken with a Nikon D90 and Lensbaby Composer/Pinhole optic. |
Pinhole photography lends itself well to the digital medium. It requires just as much time, patience and thought as its film-based counterpart, but affords more potential for free experimentation. The experience gained can then be applied to capturing pinhole images on film, with a much greater resolution.
I find the softness of pinhole photos intriguing. To me, they’re not exactly out of focus; they’re out of time. Because they can depict extended periods of time in a single frame, they seem to come from a different dimension. Even sharp pinhole photos taken in large format with an optimally-sized aperture have a quality I cannot quite describe.
So, now that I have a digital camera with an interchangeable lens that I can replace with a pinhole, I can become truly prolific in my pinhole work. With no reciprocity failure, the exposure time has been substantially shortened. With no color shifts, color pinhole photography becomes much more feasible. Under the right conditions, I can even do it handheld. The need to compare it with its film counterpart will no doubt resurrect my interest in 4x5 pinhole.
But, I will need a remote cable release (which is now wireless, of course) so there’s another thing to order.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Looking Back: Lensless Polaroid Photography
During the quest for my next lens, I Unearthed my 4x5 pinhole camera, and came across this pinhole photo, captured on Polaroid 4x5 B&W film. My partner has been instrumental in providing me with a vast outdoor studio of endless treasures to capture. And the lighting is so good. This is one of them.
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| 4x5 Polaroid Pinhole Photo |
When you think about it, Polaroid was the predecessor of digital. It solved so many of the same problems. It was great for pinhole work, because the quality of the professional film was so good, and you could see your results almost instantly. The experience with exposure translated to film, so once you nailed it with your Polaroid, you simply swapped out the back and captured the image on an equivalent speed negative film. But in and of themselves, the Polaroids were so good, they would merit their own genre: 4x5 Polaroid Pinhole. This image is over ten years old and still looks as good as the day it was captured.
Sadly, this film is out of production for now. I say for now, because the resurrection of Polaroid is inevitable, but what will come of it in the form of film types has yet to be seen. As I write, new film and cameras are in the works.
There’s always Fuji instant film, so I’m not going to toss my Polaroid 545i back just yet. But last I checked, no B&W. Yes, I could shoot color, and convert to B&W the same as I do when shooting digital B&W. But if I’m going to do that, it seems I might as well just shoot B&W negative film.
It’s more about the fact that you produce a single, original, print. It truly is one of a kind.
My initial plan to resurrect my 4x5 pinhole work is to use the D90 to gauge exposure, then shoot 4x5 B&W negative film, which I can process myself. A pinhole body cap made to match the 4x5’s focal length and some math to compensate for reciprocity should make this feasible.
Color’s not out of the question, but I think I’ll leave that up to the D90. The resolution won’t be as good as 4x5, and there’s a physical limit to how wide a view I can get before the mirror strikes the back of the pinhole cap. But the color will be stunning.
Sadly, this film is out of production for now. I say for now, because the resurrection of Polaroid is inevitable, but what will come of it in the form of film types has yet to be seen. As I write, new film and cameras are in the works.
There’s always Fuji instant film, so I’m not going to toss my Polaroid 545i back just yet. But last I checked, no B&W. Yes, I could shoot color, and convert to B&W the same as I do when shooting digital B&W. But if I’m going to do that, it seems I might as well just shoot B&W negative film.
It’s more about the fact that you produce a single, original, print. It truly is one of a kind.
My initial plan to resurrect my 4x5 pinhole work is to use the D90 to gauge exposure, then shoot 4x5 B&W negative film, which I can process myself. A pinhole body cap made to match the 4x5’s focal length and some math to compensate for reciprocity should make this feasible.
Color’s not out of the question, but I think I’ll leave that up to the D90. The resolution won’t be as good as 4x5, and there’s a physical limit to how wide a view I can get before the mirror strikes the back of the pinhole cap. But the color will be stunning.
Friday, February 19, 2010
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