Category: Pinhole

DIY high capacity panoramic pinhole camera

Nicolai Grossman Leave a comment

John from Team Droid has great instructions, with step-by-step photos, for how to build a 30-shot 120 foamcore pinhole camera (phew!). He writes:

It all started on a long plane flight in the beginning of 2006. I was doodling in my Moleskine notebook and musing about pinhole cameras when and idea struck me. What if I made a camera that was panoramic and high capacity at the same time. I had been shooting with my 6×9 medium format pinhole (120 film) for a few weeks and was happy with the images but wished I could get more than eight shots a roll and have a wider field of view. What I thought was if I moved the pinhole closer to the film plane and rotated to aspect 90 degrees I could get dozens of images on a single roll of film and still get a pretty good sized negative. Turns out I can get about 30 images on a roll and even a quickly made pinhole will produce a satisfactory sharpness.

Check it out at Team Droid

Via the f295 Pinhole Photography Forum

Verhoeven/Bell pinhole & Holga phototography show, Yokohama, JP

Nicolai Grossman Leave a comment

This show features color pinhole photographs done in Kyoto, Japan by Fred Verhoeven and black and white Woca Plastic Camera Photographs of northern Japan by Court Bell.

Fred Verhoeven is a photographer from San Francisco, CA. Court Bell is a American Photographer living in Sendai, Japan. This show is presented as Japan viewed through American eyes.

Gallery is located minutes away from JR Kannai Station in Yokohama.

Gallery Otamachi
3-35-2 Otamachi
Naka-ku
Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan

Dates: Monday, June 05, 2006 – Sunday, June 11, 2006
Opening reception: Thursday, June 08, 2006 at 05:00 PM

Artist websites at www.fred-verhoeven.com & www.courtbell.com

Via Pinhole Visions

Completely homemade folding pinhole camera

Nicolai Grossman Leave a comment

gabriel531 writes:

Here’s my most ambitious pinhole project yet – a 6×6 camera for 120 roll film with a bellows that can be pulled in to 50mm and extended to 90mm. The camera also has two pinholes – a 0.27 mm for the 50mm setting (equals f185) and a 0.36 mm pinhole for 90mm (equals f250).

This camera looks sweet! Unlike most folders, this one is built from scratch, rather than sticking a pinhole on an existing camera body. Great work!

The rest of this blog, Captured Starlight, is full of pinholey goodness. Check it out!

Read plans at Captured Starlight or discussion about it at f295 Pinhole Forum

Thanks to Paul Beard for the heads up!

A hangar, a pinhole and a world record: building the world’s biggest camera

Nicolai Grossman 1 Comment

Sometime in June, a team of photographers in southern California plans to transform an abandoned airplane hangar into a giant pinhole camera, expose a huge piece of light-sensitive cloth, and create what may be the world’s largest photograph.

The project is difficult and expensive, and if it succeeds, the result will be a single black-and-white image of an empty runway. So why do it?

To the six photographers involved, Jerry Burchfield, Mark Chamberlain, Jacques Garnier, Rob Johnson, Douglas McCulloh and Clayton Spada, the undertaking is part of something bigger than just a really huge picture…

Continue reading at Photo District News

Check out the official project site

Via photographer Jan Kapoor

Awesome implications of ISO 24,000 film

Nicolai Grossman Leave a comment

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!

Plastic Fantastic toy camera magazine: R.I.P.

Nicolai Grossman Leave a comment

filmwasters member Out of Contxt (Bill Vaccaro) writes:

Eric Hathaway, editor of Plastic Fantastic magazine, has sent out a letter informing subscribers that it is ceasing publication effective May 1 [2006]. To summarize his letter, they couldn’t cut it fanancially and it was personally bleeding Eric dry.

From hindsight, some of the factors that led to PL’s demise are obvious: lack of a sustainable subscriber base and lack of outside revenue sources (ads). I know Eric was insistent that, apart from the Holgamods‘ ad on the back cover, that the magazine be ad-free. And I’m not knocking his decision to do so either. It’s takes a lot of courage to do what Eric attempted to do. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

In any case, I’m truly sorry to see it go. I know it was a labor of love for Eric and I’ll really miss getting my issues at my doorstep every few months. I always felt there was room for more than one publication devoted to toy cams. Damn shame.

The plasticfantasticonline.com site is already down. Update your links pages and break out the black armbands.

Via slowlight pinhole blog

How-to: 120 folding camera pinhole conversion

Nicolai Grossman 3 Comments

Paul Beard posted a how-to for converting an old folding 6×9 120 Foldex 20 camera to use a pinhole instead of a lens and adding a cable release. Even if you’re an old hand at pinhole conversions, you may want to check out his elegant cable release design.

"After kvetching about the pictures of other camera HOWTOs, I figured I better do a good job on my own.

"Read on for some pictures and text on how to convert an old 120 roll film camera to a pinhole camera, as well as adding a cable release…"

Read instructions at paulbeard.org

Via MAKE Blog