Yesterday, I posted (well, lifted Oren Grad’s post from The Online Photographer) about an ultra high-speed ISO 24,000 B&W reversal film emulsion that Kodak have developed, but one implication didn’t hit me until today: if released commercially, it would allow handheld pinhole photography at normal shutter speeds.
An aperture of f/185 gives you a shutter speed between 1/125 and 1/250 second in about a half stop under full sun, and you’d have an even wider range of choices with zone plates or photon sieves, whose aperture equivalents are larger.
This opens up a lot of possibilities that didn’t really exist before: tripod-free shooting, flash (including fill flash), precision exposure control with normal shutters, and a whole world of candid/documentary and indoor and outdoor stop-motion photography.
While I generally like the slower shooting experience of pinhole photography, sometimes it’s just annoying, and sometimes it outright prevents me from getting the shots I want.
I’m really excited by the possibility of more creative choices. Bring it on, Kodak!