Pinhole a la D610

Nikon D610 + Lensbaby Pinhole/Zone Plate Optic
1/60 @ f/177, -0.67, ISO 6400

On this beautiful, sunny sunday, I decided to take my Lensbaby out for a spin, now that I can use it as it was meant to be on a full-frame camera.

Much better. Not only a wider view, but more detail due to the larger sensor, which reduces the  effects of diffraction. I’m also finding that I can easily shoot in Aperture Priority mode by adjusting the Non-CPU lens setting to 50mm @ f/22. This seems to work fine even though technically the aperture of the pinhole is f/177. I get great exposures with my usual -0.67 exposure compensation setting.

At ISO 6400, handheld shooting in bright light is practical, and the “grain” (digital ISO noise) adds texture to the image, which would otherwise be very soft. It gives the sensation of sharpness. I use just a little bit of noise reduction in post, but not enough to completely wipe out the grain, as there is significant detail in there that it also wipes out.

The color is amazing. With no glass to create distortion, spherical aberration, ghosts, flare or color shifts, these images have a kind of purity missing for normal photography. I’m finding the subject matter and composition to be of paramount importance in these images. Here are some more...

Nikon D610 + Lensbaby Pinhole/Zone Plate Optic
1/25 @ f/177, -1.0, ISO 6400 

Nikon D610 + Lensbaby Pinhole/Zone Plate Optic
1/50 @ f/177, -0.67, ISO 6400

Nikon D610 + Lensbaby Pinhole/Zone Plate Optic
1/80 @ f/177, -0.67, ISO 6400

There’s no focus, and now with the D610, no real need to adjust aperture. It has infinite depth of field. It’s all about the composition and choice of subject matter. It frees your mind and gets you thinking. It could be a marvelous way to teach photography.

I’m not a big fan of using live view for photography on a DSLR, but in this case it works quite well. The viewfinder is almost completely black, but when I turn on Live View, I can easily compose without having to bring my Voigtländer extern viewfinder along. That I’ll reserve for infrared use, where the camera simply isn’t sensitive enough to use Live View.

In post-processing, sharpening with USM (Unsharp Masking) does nothing but accentuate the grain. But, adjusting the Clarity slider in Adobe Camera Raw works wonders, as does a tiny bit of Vibrance and Saturation, though not much is needed because the colors are very clean.

I can only imagine what this would be like with a 4x5 digital back. It would be pretty awesome. And this gets me to thinking about turning the camera on its side and taking three side by side shots, either stitching them together in photoshop, or mounting them side-by-side triptych style. That would result in approximately a 12,048 x 6016 px image. That could be pretty cool.