Captured Starlight

You are invited...

2008-07-15T11:13:00.000-07:00

to my first solo show - held starting this week at the Fort Gallery in Fort Langley. The opening reception is this Friday, July 18th, from 7-10 pm. Hope to see you there!

Not exactly pinhole...

2008-05-28T14:05:00.000-07:00

Apologies for these - but long-length telephoto / wildlife shots & pinhole just don't mix! These shots are from the Yukon Wildlife Preserve, which I was very fortunate to visit recently while on a business trip to Whitehorse.

Enjoy!

Yukon Wildlife Preserve

612 Juice Box Camera

2008-05-10T21:40:00.000-07:00

This camera was one of those "spur of the moment" cams - and one I decided I would make from only what I had in the kitchen/recycle bin at the time.

The camera is made from three 1 liter juice boxes of the TetraPak variety. The winding mechanism is based on a pencil stub with a empty, flattened eraser holder. The winder is held in place with bread bag clips, and there are washers of TetraPak material on both sides of the box to make it light-tight. The spools ride on decapitated push pins pressed into 2L pop bottle caps - (full height on the one side, trimmed flat on the other) giving a perfect size for the native box dimensions.

The finished camera is held together with elastic bands, plus a swath of hockey tape around the whole seam for light proofing. Don't expect a tight wrap on the film - you'll need to unload in the dark or in a changing bag. The flexibility of the box material also can be a pain when trying to hold the camera still - I eventually made a wooden base plate with a tripod mount in it to overcome this design limitation. The plate is just banded on with the elastics.

If you want try making one of these feel free to ask for more details with a comment.

The camera owes a nod to Nick Dvoracek's Populist Camera. I recommend Nick's site - it has some good articles he's written on pinhole photography. You can often find Nick hanging around at f295 as well.

Of course, the proof is in the pudding: here's a test shot from the Trinity Western Campus (down at "Trinity Lake"). I've cropped the ragged edges and added a frame in Adobe CS2.

Happy WPPD!

2008-04-27T21:27:00.001-07:00

Here's my wishes in the waning hours of WPPD that everyone had the opportunity to continue their quest for personal pinholiness today!

Workshop Camera

2008-04-25T12:41:00.000-07:00

Here's some pictures of the 6x6 wooden camera we built during the workshop. This is a new design, based on some ideas gleaned from f295 over the years, plus my own ideas.

The camera is a wood / ABS hybrid. The main feature is the drop-in winding mechanism. Loading is achieved by flexing the ABS on the bottom. Once loaded, the cassette drops into the body.

In the future I think I'll try this design on other formats (612, 618, etc).

Pinhole Photography Workshop

2008-04-07T16:49:00.001-07:00

I will be offering a two-part pinhole workshop through the Fort Gallery later this month - details below!

Sample pics from the 617 camera

2007-04-16T16:12:00.000-07:00

Here at last are some sample pictures from the 617 camera up for sale on ebay right now. I finally figured out how to make a scanner I have access to scan 6x9 from 120 film. These images are three scans pasted together in photoshop to cover the full 17 cm negative. I didn't always get the levels exactly right between the three scans. Any artifacts you see (like the overexposed center of the train tacks picture) are just differences in levels and not artifacts on the negs. These exposures were in the 10-20 second range, depending on the light. The film used was Agfa APX 100.

In the above picture, the power poles truly are leaning outwards - that's not distortion. I find if the camera is kept level you can't even tell it has a curved plane.

You can see pics of the camera itself in the post below.

New 617 curved plane camera

2007-04-10T15:41:00.000-07:00

I've built another panoramic pinhole camera for 120 film from ABS. It's similar to my last camera (see the posts below) but with a few improvements. This camera is also up for sale on ebay right now. The camera takes four 6x17 images on 120 roll film. I'll post some pictures taken with it soon (once I contact print some - I don't have a scanner that will do 6x17). The pictures are great, though! I've now had 4 rolls of film through the camera, and everything is working great.

The camera is welded together using ABS cement this time - the result was a very rigid and strong camera! The cloth tape is just for insurance against light leaks - it has no structural role.

The tripod mount is more professionally done this time.

The main difference is that this camera has spring-loaded film winders - so there is no need for a swing-out base. The camera is more solidly constructed as a result. The winders just pop up and the film drops in.

Updated pics of the 6x18 camera

2007-02-21T20:45:00.000-08:00

I've put this camera up for sale, so here are some updated pics for potential buyers to see.

The camera with the shutter open.

The camera with the shutter closed.

A view from the back with the red window cover open. I've also put a small aluminum holder for the film box top on the back.

A closeup of the window cover in the closed position. The small label says "2,5,8,11" to remind the user of the correct frame numbers to use in sequence.

The top of the camera with my exposure guide for Fuji Acros 100 and Ilford Pan F+ 50 (my two films of choice). Meter at f16 and the corresponding time at f250 is listed. The two films have different reciprocity failure curves, hence the different times.

First light from the 6x18

2007-02-09T00:40:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post to show you the 6x18 camera is working - although my light meter wasn't that day (it had a run-in with a toddler). I now have a new (well, old, actually) light meter but on this day it was "by guess and by golly." These shots are of historic buildings in Fort Langley - the town hall and a CN (Canadian National) train station. I think I'll try some nature shots next.

In other news the f295 calendar is now ready for sale: you can view the spreads on f295, and purchase it at lulu. My image is in the August spread.

6x18 camera with curved film plane

2006-12-08T00:02:00.000-08:00

Well, at last I've stolen a few evenings to build yet another camera - a 6x18 panoramic camera for 120 rollfilm. I've been waiting to build this camera for a while....

I decided that aluminum wasn't going to be rigid enough, so I chose 1/8 inch ABS sheeting instead. This summer when I fiberglassed our deck I came across this material at the fiberglass supply store in the form of offcuts - about 1 foot square, and 50 cents per sheet. I may even use ABS cement for the next one - this one was a trial run.

Getting started. One nice thing about ABS is that it cuts very nicely on a table saw.

Adding hardware and the dividers that will eventually support the curved film guide. If you've followed my other cameras like the homemade folder you'll notice some familiar design elements.

Adding the bottom plate. It swings down to allow loading of the spools. Hockey tape "bellows" keep things light-tight but allow for a flexible joint.

Detail of a bellows and the finished bottom plate (less the tripod mount added later).

Aluminum (yes! it has aluminum!) braces hold the dividers steady. I would have used ABS cement but it smells - and it's darn cold outside right now...

The film guide cut out and ready for installation.

Film guide installed. The tension of the flexed aluminum is enough to keep it in the desired curve. The "focal" radius is 85mm.

The back of the camera is simply a shallow ABS box that fits snugly over the camera and is lined with weatherstripping foam. The back has a red window for advancing film (for 6x18 with a centred window, start with "2" and then progress to 5, 8, et cetera).

The assembled camera, with sections of motorcycle innertube as industrial-strength elastics. All that remains is to install a pinhole and build a shutter (and get some 120 film!!) Stay tuned!

A note of celebration

2006-12-01T17:03:00.000-08:00

Some of you are probably wondering if I've fallen off the face of the earth! Well, not quite, but close- it's near the end of the fall semester and my workload is large at the moment.

Still, there's time for a quick post - one of my images (above) was selected for inclusion in the f295 yearly calendar- it's from my Milner series.

I'm hoping to get a wee bit of pinholing in over the Christmas break, before the spring semester swallows me...

More pictures from the 5x7 camera

2006-07-30T22:11:00.000-07:00

I was out at UBC last week and took some more shots with the new 5x7 camera. It's performing very well. This camera (without the filter) is now up for sale on ebay - click the link on the sidebar and you'll see the auction.

The pictures are of the new UBC life sciences centre, and of the replica statue of the "Godess of Democracy" - the icon created by the Tiannemen Square protesters in China before the tanks rolled in. Democracy is a gift...

90 sec exposure on Ilford MG IV paper, internal yellow filter. A nice demonstration of the sharpness of the homemade 0.50mm pinhole.

as above, but 3 minute exposure + slight levels nudge in PS

New camera and more from Milner

2006-07-25T22:24:00.000-07:00

My table saw is now finally set up and running. While I have used it for construction purposes already (I'm rennovating our deck right now) my first "project" using the saw was a new plywood camera for 5x7 film holders. I wanted to start using paper negatives (cheaper!) and 5x7 is a nice large size. It's also very convenient to use 5x7 paper - all that is required is to trim off about 2mm from one length and it'll slip right into the holder. Easy!

There are some very dedicated and excellent paper shooters on f295 - people like bino, JoeVanCleave and Steve Irvine (who makes pottery cameras!). I've been inspired by them to try this out.

The other advantage to paper negs (besides cost - where can you get 5x7 sheet film for 20 cents a shot??) is that you can develop by inspection under red light. One downside is that Multigrade paper (which most people use) comes out very contrasty when exposed with a pinhole - basically only black or white, with nary a grey to be seen. I had an idea to try circumvent this drawback, though: using a yellow filter to restrict the contrast. The low contrast Multigrade filters are yellow, so I thought a yellow camera (lens) filter might work too.

The new 5x7 cam: specs are as follows: 150mm FL, 0.50mm pinhole (f300), internal yellow filter over pinhole, threaded 1/4-20 tripod mount (landscape mode), wooden shutter with black paper wrap (old 120 backing paper). Exposures for paper are L O N G - so I felt no need for a cable release shutter.

The back is a simple "open box" design for now, but I will likely add a frame around the rim for the holder later. The rim is lined with black foam weatherstripping to create a light seal with the holder. The inside of the camera is lined with more 120 backing paper - future cameras will simply be painted flat black, but I wanted to recycle the paper...

The film back is held snugly in place with large elastic bands cut as cross sections from a motorcycle innertube.

A handy trick is to use a darkslide tucked under one of the bands as a "lens" shade before opening the shutter to make an exposure.

I've used this cam in my ongoing Milner project (see the previous post). The results are very encouraging, and the yellow filter seems to have done the trick! You can click on the pictures to see a larger version (recommended!).

Here's the farm feed store that the grain elevators from the first Milner post supply. Exposure was ~3 min in bright sun.

I wanted to try some double exposures - here's basically the same image but with a double exposure of the main street overlaid on it. Exposures were about 1.5 minutes each.

Here's another double take of the now derelict Harrington Grocery in Milner. Exposures were also around 1.5 min each.

There's still lots to shoot here, so there will be more to come in future posts!

A photo from Iowa

2006-07-20T16:41:00.000-07:00

I recieved an email and photo from another (repeat) customer, Harry W in Iowa. Harry writes:

I bought two pinholes from you. the first a 75mm focal length gave this photo with the pinhole mounted in an Agfa Speedex in the lens mounting ring....I removed the lens elements and cut the pinhole to fit. I have been displaying images from it at the camera shop where I work. The customers like the quality in an 11x14 print size. I am working on building a panoramic film back 6x12 to fit the 50mm pinhole I got last. Thanks for a really smooth pinhole - it's as sharp as the original agfa apo lens.

Thanks for the great photo and the note, Harry. I'll look forward to seeing how your 6x12 cam works out!

DC-3

2006-07-14T21:37:00.000-07:00

The local airport has an airplane museum next to it, and this DC-3 is the pride of the collection. This particular craft, the Spirit of the Skeena, even serviced (and was ultimately abandoned in) my hometown of Terrace, BC. It has now been fully restored.

The day I shot these the clouds were drifting past in a light breeze, creating some interesting, if subtle sky patterns.

Homemade 4x5 camera, 60mm FL, 0.30 mm pinhole on Ilford Delta 100 ASA. Exposures unrecorded.

Click on the pictures to see a larger version.

New PayPal Buttons - buy direct

2006-07-12T13:29:00.000-07:00

I've now posted PayPal buttons on the sidebar so you can purchase pinholes directly from me, instead of through Ebay. Since this saves me some fees, I've dropped the price a bit as well. You can still use Ebay if you want to, but now you have another option. The buttons are set up for single or multiple orders, and there is a place on the PayPal form to specify what size(s) you want.

I've also posted buttons for the body caps for Canon FD and Pentax K mounts with shipping to the USA/Canada or International for the the rest of the world.

As per usual, items will ship within 2 business days of payment.

Happy pinholing!

Milner, B.C.

2006-07-11T22:12:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been working on a series of pinhole images of a small farming town that has been nearly swallowed up by the surrounding suburb. This little gem is called Milner, and I cycle though it to get to work out at TWU. This series will likely form the basis for my application for a gallery on f295, if and when I get enough images I like.

These were taken with a converted Foldex 20 (6x9 cm, ~90mm FL, 0.38mm pinhole). There is a farm feed store ("Hometown Hay & Feed") in Milner that services the local farms with grain feed. These shots are of the grain tranfer station/elevators that supply the store. The elevators are supplied by rail cars that use a short spur off of the main line.

I'll post more Milner shots as the portfolio grows...

Aerial pinhole photography - another take on the Flying Pinhole!

2006-07-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

Daniel G's work continues to amaze and surprise me. Daniel has long been into aerial photography using RC model planes (with small digital cameras controlled from the ground with servos). More recently, Daniel has taken up pinhole photography (some of his previous projects have been posted here previously). All along I've secretly been hoping that Daniel would combine his two hobbies and make an aerial pinhole camera. Well, Daniel took me up on my offer of a free pinhole and used it to make exactly that. The results are astonishing!

Daniel writes:

Hello,
Here is my first aerial photo pinhole, with the 0,2mm pinhole (the free order).
It is a tram station in the campus of Bordeaux.
The film is HP5 and it was developped for iso1600.

Here is the rc model-plane : wingspan 1m, weight 250g. It is made from polystyrene.

The hand made pinhole camera on the plane

A close up of the shutter with the camera mounted in the plane

A view inside the camera with the film

You can follow Daniel's projects on his own blog here. Thanks Daniel! Amazing stuff! Keep it up!

Ansco Shur Shot Pinhole Conversion

2006-06-15T21:02:00.000-07:00

Here's my latest pinhole project - converting an Ansco Shur Shot box camera. This was even easier than the Foldex 20. The shutter had a single speed and no B setting- but it was easy to install a metal rod that blocks the shutter from firing through - thus converting it to a "B" shutter. As long as you hold the lever down, the shutter stays open; when you let go, it closes. An easy, reliable conversion.

The camera back with exposure guide and cloth tape over the red window.

The inside of the camera with the film cone out. The pinhole is installed up in the recessed hole where the lens was. It's a 0.41 mm hole at ~ 100mm (f245). The pinhole is a beaut - I really took my time on it to make it a nice one.

The film cone with empty take up spool. The camera takes 6x9 cm images on standard 120 roll film, so 8 shots per roll.

Here's the shutter open and a view of the pinhole from the front. I had to turn the flash off, so it's a little blurry.

Here's how to hold the shutter open for long exposures: a rubber band wrapped around the camera and looped over the shutter lever. If you get the tension right you can open or close the shutter and it will stay where you put it- open or closed. Low tech, but the camera ain't exactly high tech anyway.

Here are some test pics:

An old flowerpot on my deck - 30min exposure on ~25 year-old Kodak Panatomic X 32 ASA film (I got two rolls in a mixed lot of stuff I bought locally - it expired in 1984!)

A shot off our back deck...

A blowup to show detail - the pinhole is working fine.

As with the Foldex, it's now on Ebay to fund the film habit... click the "Buy a pinhole" link in the sidebar to see the auction if you're interested!

Daniel's 35mm pinhole camera

2006-06-15T21:01:00.000-07:00

Here's Daniel G's latest project: a Zeiss Icarex 35mm SLR now sporting one of my 0.25mm pinholes in place of the Zeiss optics. No comparison, of course! Move over, Carl Z! ;o)

This camera makes a nice companion to Daniel's Agfa Clack (see a previous post). Looks to have been a straightforward conversion. Nice work!

Daniel writes:

Hello, Here are 2 photos of my old IKAREX (Zeiss-Ikon) with your pinhole. The photo test, with a clock, is real size (384ko) : ilford pan-F film, exposure 5s with a spot-light 500w, revelator ilford ID11,1-0.

Très bon sténopé :-)

@+ Daniel

As always, I like to blow up test images ridiculously large to check pinhole performance. This one seems to hold its own just fine - a good pinhole is so important for smaller film formats like 35mm. You could get away with less on 4x5 (not that I do), but a pinhole for 35mm needs to be a good one if it's to handle any level of enlargement.

With all the pinholes I've sold, you'd think I'd get more images. Thanks Daniel! Tell you what - your next pinhole is free of charge! Just email me and tell me what size you'd like and I'll send you one gratis. Maybe it's time you built a 4x5 camera or something, or a tin can camera for photo paper, maybe.

And for all the rest of you with my pinholes out there- let's see your cameras and some shots! :o)

4x5 wide angle pinhole camera project

2006-06-04T13:17:00.000-07:00

Here's my latest build - an aluminum 4x5 pinhole camera for use with standard 4x5 cut film holders. It's a simple and reliable design, and very lightweight. It's made from a single piece of aluminum and joined together with my signature hockey tape construction. The shutter is the standard cable release-activated guillotene style. The camera back has a foam rim under a layer of cloth tape for a light-tight seal against the film back. The film holders are held snugly in place with large rubber bands cut from a motorcycle innertube. It's very low tech, but the camera functions very well. I've also mounted a standard tripod mount on the bottom side in the same way I did for my homemade folder.

The camera has a focal length of 60mm, which is very wide for 4x5 film - about 115 degrees of view (the 35mm equivalent would be an 18 mm fisheye lens). The pinhole is 0.30 mm (f200). I've tested the camera for light tightness with a 6-hour test in hazy sun with a darkslide pulled, and no light leaks were detected.

Here's a test image from the camera - this is the microscope I use when making pinholes. This is a 6 min exposure onto Ilford Multicontrast paper. The abililty to shoot with paper in a 4x5 folder is a nice option - it's cheaper than film, and you can watch the negs develop under a safelight. Then it's a simple matter to scan and invert using Photoshop.

Here's a large blowup of the above image to demonstrate how SHARP this pinhole is. You can see incredible detail and resolution. 0.30 mm is pretty much optimal for 60mm, and I took my time with this pinhole. Seems to have paid off!

This one's on the auction block too. I'll be building another for myself soon anyway. Click on the Ebay link on the sidebar to see my current auctions.

Daniel's other horseman

2006-06-01T01:38:00.000-07:00

"Rampin Horseman" Daniel G, Agfa Clack / 0.35mm pinhole

This A M A Z I N G image came from Daniel G over in France - it's another shot from the Agfa Clack 6x9 he converted using one of my 0.35 mm pinholes. Do you really think a laser pinhole could do better? W O W ! Daniel, you need to join f295 and start posting your images there!

Daniel is now a repeat customer - soon he will convert a 35mm camera with one of my 0.25mm pinholes. I'll keep you posted.

Daniel writes:

Hello Dennis,

Rampin Horseman
Head of a horseman, known as the "Rampin Horseman".
It is a shot from a copy (Le Louvre), with the Agfa-Clack and your
0.35mm pinhole with a light-spot of 200w, exposure 45s, film
agfa-orto25. The pinhole is very very good :-)
Daniel

Merci mille fois, Daniel! Ce photo est manifique!

More pictures from the panoramic camera

2006-05-30T16:16:00.000-07:00

Some more pics from the ultrawide camera for your enjoyment. You can now buy one of these cameras from me on ebay too.

Click on the pics to see a larger version.

Foldex 20 6x9 pinhole folder on Ebay

2006-05-29T15:01:00.000-07:00

Here's the lastest project - strictly to fund my film habit! :o) It's a Fodex 20 folder that uses 120 film (and 620 film too, if you happen to have some lying around!). This camera will do both- the winder spools have slots for either type. Not that you'll have 620 film, but it is historically curious. The camera came with a metal 620 spool still in it, suggesting it's been a while since this camera put light to film.

Surgery was as follows: the simple meniscus lens (think thick contact lens) was removed, a 0.39mm pinhole installed, and a threaded socket mounted for using a cable release. Simple! The test roll showed that everything is working as planned. I'd keep it, but I'm going to build my own 6x12 or 6x18 soon anyway. This one was strictly for resale - but I was tempted to keep it after seeing those sharp, BIG negs!

Here you can see the pinhole mounted where the lens was, and the surrounding metal blacked out with tape and magic marker.

The bellows are in great shape!

Here's a closeup of the shutter with the homemade cable release socket. You can see the pinhole inside the shutter assembly. The release socket is a small eye hook screwed and epoxyed into the shutter casing, with a small nut epoxyed onto it. It works great, and it's not going anywhere either. Funny that this camera didn't have a provision for cable release.

For the test roll I took the camera down to a wetland near my house. It was a bit breezy, so some of the blur is from the wind (especially the closeup below). All systems are go!

Here's a detail of the previous image enlarged to show the sharpness of the image. I wonder if the pinhole would have outperformed the original crappy lens?

If you are interested in bidding on this camera click on the "Buy a pinhole on Ebay" link in the sidebar to see a list of my current auctions.

A flurry of projects & pics

2006-05-26T12:52:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been a creative few days! Here's what's up:

The homemade 6x6 folder is working GREAT,
I've redone the pano-pin cam, and it's now working great too,
I've set up shop at home for developing my own B&W negs, and
The 6x9 cm Foldex 20 arrived and is now converted over to pinhole (90mm FL, 0.40mm pinhole, =f225). Test roll is in process.

Whew! Here are some pictures from the cams:

Trees in the wind - 6x6 at 50mm

UBC Main Library reconstruction - 6x6 at 50mm

Derelict bicycles, TWU campus - Pano-pin

There are further technical details available on my posts on f295. Enjoy!

Daniel's Agfa Clack Conversion

2006-05-24T01:40:00.000-07:00

I received another email from Daniel over in France describing his second pinhole project. He's now used my pinhole to convert an Afga Clack to pinhole shooting. Clacks are old 6x9 cameras for 120 roll film that are popular for such conversions. This way you get the film transport/shutter/tripod mount made for you - which is easier than making it yourself. I'd love to convert a Clack someday too!

Daniel writes:

Hello

I found an AgfaClack camera on ebay for $10 it is more easy than the Horseman.

Your pinhole is now on the AgfaClack

And the photo of my résidence Compostelle at Pessac near Bordeaux

note : the film is agfa 25ISO ORTHOCHROMATQUE. (appropriate choice of film for a Clack!)

Your pinhole (in french sténopé) is very good !
à plus
Daniel

Here's Daniel's Clack with my pinhole installed.

A picture taken with the converted Clack. The camera and the pinhole seem to be performing well. What a great pinhole setup!

The 6x9 neg is one of my favorite sizes (I have an old Franka Rolfix that shoots 6x9 with a 105mm Schneider lens). That camera is in far too nice condition to convert, though. Right now I have an old Foldex 20 coming from a recent Ebay win that I will be converting sometime soon. The Foldex 20 is an American-made el-cheapo folder with an awful lens - so I won't feel too bad when I destroy it!

I now have film in the new homemade folder, and I should have the test roll finished and developed in a few days. Thanks for the note, Daniel. I'll look forward to seeing some more images!

Sign up for Feedblitz!

2006-05-22T15:11:00.000-07:00

If you'd like to recieve automatic email notification when I post new material on this blog, you can now sign up using the widget in the sidebar.

Enjoy!

Homemade 6x6 folder for pinhole

2006-05-20T20:55:00.000-07:00

Here's my most ambitious pinhole project yet - a 6x6 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).

The body cut to size and ready for bending into a three-sided box, plus top plate.

The body bent into shape with the top plate attached. This plate will swing up to allow the film spools to be loaded into the camera.

Here's the lightproofing for the top plate. The tape (it's taped from both sides) folds inside the camera to provide a flexible light seal.

I originally thought I would make the swing-out plate the bottom plate (as in this photo), but I later changed it to the top plate.

Detail of the winder - it's a 8-32 nylon bolt from Home depot that I shaved down with an Olfa cutter to fit snugly inside the film take up spool. There is a lock washer between the brass nuts to keep them tensioned on each other. I later put a brass washer between the top plate and the first nut to reduce friction. There is a washer and nut on the other side, topped by the knurled knob. The knob and the nut are tensioned together, leaving the tension on the plate sufficient to hold the spool in place (to prevent unwinding) but still turn freely.

Making the bellows is actually quite easy - lay out strips of hockey tape on a clean surface (sticky side up) and temporarily tape their edges down to keep them flat. Lay out your stiffeners as per the photo, and then tape over them with another layer of tape. The only trick is getting the edges lined up right when you fold it into a (square) tube - you want the spacing to be the same as for the other joints.

The finished bellows ready for mounting into the camera.

The camera body cut out for the bellows.

Detail of the tripod mount - a 1/4 x 20 T-nut designed for wood construction. It has four sharp "teeth" around it that I used to pierce the aluminum and then crimp over to hold it firmly in place. I first pressed it into the drilled hole to mark the bottom plate with the teeth, then started the holes for the teeth with the tip of the Olfa knife, and then pushed them through. There is also a gasket of bicycle innertube rubber between the nut and the bottom plate to keep everything light-tight.

The tripod mount from the inside. I light-proofed the nut by putting a small piece of foam into the bore and crimping in a small circle of aluminum sheeting (cut with a hole punch).

Here's the whole camera at this stage - bellows taped in, tripod mount installed. You can see the winding bolt is now in the flexible top plate. The non-winding spool bolts are lightproofed with rubber washers. It took some care to get the nuts into exactly the right spot so that everything is precisely aligned for film transport. The compressibility of the rubber washers helped this process.

Here's the camera with the film mask installed and an old roll of film I used for spacing. You can see I've taped over the tripod mount, The film mask is essentially a small aluminum box with a 6x6 cm cutout. The edges of the frame are smooth enough that rollers are not necessary, but the cutout edges will be covered with smooth tape to prevent them from scratching the emulsion.

Here's the camera back just after installation. It's hinged with tape on the one side and clasped to the body on the other with a bolt and knurled knob. Note the notch in the edge of the door to allow the bolt to seat properly. The brass washer goes on the outside of the door to prevent the knob from marring it.

Detail of the back closing knob.

Bottom view, back installed.

Design and dry fitting of the "lens"board into the bellows.

Lensboard installed with side flanges bent over and drilled for four 6x32 bolts. These bolts will hold the lensboard to the stays.

Another view

The short stays (for 50mm) are fixed to the camera, but the long stays are not - they sit inside the short stays and are held in place solely by the bellows tension.

The long stays (for 90mm)

Here's a detail of the pinhole selector test-mounted on a scrap piece of aluminum to get the hole spacing right. I had to turn the flash off, so it's a little blurry. The top pinhole is 0.36mm and the bottom one is 0.27mm.

The lensboard drilled and ready for mounting.

The selector installed and the shutter constructed. The notch on the shutter slider locks under the selector screw to give a consistent shutter position when pushed open with the cable release.

The shutter and cable release installed. A rubber band pulls the shutter closed.

The cable release is mounted in a small flange bolted into the stay holder bolts.

The camera ready for drilling the frame counter window.

I was stumped for quite a while for a source of red acetate for the counter window. Then, one day at work I noticed a set of page dividers- the kind with the plastic tabs for inserting paper labels. The one tab was a nice ruby red. I peeled it off the paper, cut it into four pieces, cleaned off the paper and residual glue with 95% ethanol, and taped the stack of four into the camera over the counter hole. The four layers makes it nice and dark, but clear enough to see the film numbers.

I made a cover for the counter window to shade it when not in use.

The finished camera, ready to go! I should be able to get 120 film in a few days (120 isn't available in my hometown, so a trip into the city is in order). If you want to try a similar build and need more details, leave a comment or send me a message through f295 (I'm member "gabriel531").

Pinhole photos from France!

2006-05-17T17:04:00.000-07:00

Well, my handmade custom pinholes can now be called "world famous." :o) These are the first two images captured by Daniel Gourribon, who is newly exploring pinhole photography in France. He seems to be using some sort of technical camera - I've asked for further details. Thanks for sending these, Daniel!

"My first photo pinhole.
film 400iso, exposure 3s,f:70 f=25mm, hazy sun .
On foreground the rail of the bellows and lensboard of the camera."

"My second photo pinhole.
film 25iso, exposure 1Min10s,f:228 f=75mm, hazy sun"

Daniel sent more info and pics of his (VERY NICE!) camera (a Horseman 980 technical camera, 120 roll film):

"Front view photo: you can see the shutter (black tape)."

"Close up: your pinhole and the shutter."

Thanks Daniel! You can check out his very cool site here: he takes digital pictures with a RC model airplane!

Konica Autoreflex T2 macro / pinhole system for sale on Ebay

2006-05-12T01:16:00.000-07:00

I've decided to sell off one of my Konica Autoreflex cameras in order to finance some other projects. Besides, I have a T3n set just like it, and I'm having a blast with the homemade cameras right now.

So, it's on Ebay. Click on the "Buy a pinhole on Ebay" link on the sidebar and it will be in the list.

Here are some detailed pictures (I'm too cheap to post these on Ebay, and they are much larger here and thus easier to see. Click on a picture to see a larger version).

Here's the complete set: Konica Autoreflex T2, 57mm f1.4 Hexanon lens, Prinz automatic extension tube set (36mm, 18mm, 13.5mm), two pinhole body caps (a 0.25mm and a 0.35mm), and a table of focal lengths and f-numbers for every possible combination.

These cameras are built like tanks, and they have excellent optics. The camera body has some wear on the paint and some small lifting of the leatherette, but it is fully functional (with the exception of the meter - I don't know if it still works. It did last time I had 1.35V batteries).

Here's how the multi-focal length pinhole thing works: you can extend a pinhole cap away from the film with an extension tube. See the table below for all the possibilities!

Here's a closeup of the extension tubes.

A closeup of the body caps and part of the exposure guide.

Here's a table with all the possible combinations of focal length (approx) and the corresponding f-number for either pinhole. The bold numbers indicate that you will get a sharper image at that focal length with that pinhole size.

Pano-pin test roll #1

2006-05-06T13:04:00.000-07:00

Here's the lastest pinhole project - an ultra-wide aluminum matchbox camera for 35mm film. It's definitely a cousin to the Alumi-pin (see below) but I've improved things somewhat.

First off, I decided to alter the construction to a top loading style to allow me to slim the focal length to 24mm, or about the diameter of a roll of 35mm film. This has the advantage of keeping the film and takeup spool snug without wedging in foam.

For this camera I wanted to see just how wide I could go - so it's a 74mm frame size. At a 24mm focal length this works out to a view of ~170 degrees. The crappy scanner at the 1-hour photo can't handle this size, so I "divided" the frame into two 24x36mm frames with a 2mm stripe of tape.

The first test roll was a success, but the shutter was causing some problems at short exposure times (you can see it in the pictures, especially on the left hand side). It was only an issue for exposures less than 1 sec, but I have now reworked the shutter with slicker material to speed things up.

Stay tuned for roll#2!

World Pinhole Photography Day Photos

2006-05-04T22:44:00.000-07:00

"On the beach" - ~1/2 sec exposure on Fuji 200 ASA print film, 0.210 mm pinhole at 30mm (= f145), 24mm square film mask.

April 30th, 2006 was World Pinhole Photography Day, and we were over in Nanaimo visiting my parents. Around noon we were down at the beach (Departure Bay) and I took some photos using my homemade 35mm rollfilm pinhole camera. The photo above is my son and my mom sharing a grandson-grandma moment on the beach. This photo is also part of the f295 community's simultaneous pinhole project. You can see this photo on the WPPD site here (my submission # is 1004, or limit your search to "f295" under the "groups" menu.

These are three exposures taken in sequence to give a panoramic view of the bay. If you look closely at the right hand frame you can see the 12:30 ferry pulling in to the dock with Newcastle Island in the background. Obviously there is a small light leak in the camera that needs to be fixed (the red cast on the first two images).

Alumi-pin test roll #2 - glitches solved!

2006-04-25T22:31:00.000-07:00

The changes to the camera (see the post below) worked great. I also re-lined the lid with innertube rubber in lieu of foam, and it worked better. The frame counter allowed me to space the images evenly and accurately. I've now installed a 0.210 mm pinhole, which is closer to optimal size for 30 mm, and changed the film mask to a 24 x 24 mm square to try this format on for size (and squeeze more images on to a roll). I think I'll save the next roll for World Pinhole Day.

Enjoy!

It was a glorious day here yesterday. This is the sun shining through the trees into my backyard. The wind was blowing, so a lot of the blur is the motion of the leaves & trees. Summer is coming! (Alumi-pin, 4 sec exposure on Fuji print film, f105 {0.280mm pinhole at 30mm}).

These shots were done by placing the camera on the dashboard of my car while driving at night, and allowing street and car lights to "paint" the film with a long exposure. The cable release made taking these exposures easy. (Alumi-pin, ~ 8 sec exposure on Fuji print film, f105 {0.280mm pinhole at 30mm}).

1st Test Roll from the "Alumi-pin"

2006-04-24T16:32:00.000-07:00

I decided the camera needed a name, so unless someone out there has a better idea, the "Alumi-pin" it will be.

I got the first roll back, and so far, so good. My spacing between frames (using the "wind and pray" technique) was very erratic. I think I gave the scanner a serious headache. I have now added a working frame - clicker counter to the design to address this issue. You can also see a pink haze in some images on the right - my finger on the shutter. I have now fitted a cable release to the shutter, which should solve that glitch too. The only other issue was scratches on the emulsion, likely from rough edges on the film guide. I have now covered the guide with silky tape to prevent this, although the scratches are kind of interesting in their own right. It's not a Leica, after all. The pinhole (280 microns, or 0.28 mm) performed very well. The focal length turned out to be closer to 30mm.

Enjoy!

Still life of lunch, with the TWU pond in the background. The can is about 20 cm from the camera.

A blowup of the above picture to show the pinhole performance. 280 microns is a bit large for 30mm, but it is working well. I make my own pinholes - for details you can check out my current ebay auctions here.

A shot of an overhead wrought-iron gazebo. I liked the high constrast.

An intentional multiple exposure of the gazebo above. I decided to underexpose each time to have the intersections of the bars stand out more emphatically. The ghostly image on the right is an unintentional self-portrait - I underestimated the angle of view while taking the second exposure.

Your suggestions, comments and critiques are welcome!

Making a 35mm "matchbox" pinhole camera from aluminum flashing

2006-04-21T23:57:00.000-07:00

The completed camera ready to go!

Surfing the web looking for pinhole ideas eventually lead me to this site, which describes how to make a 35mm pinhoe camera from a matchbox. Pretty neat, except I wasn't too keen on all aspects of the design. First off, a 12mm focal length is very wide (I'm not the only one who thinks so, see here) ; secondly, I prefer to make a more permanent design. Re-taping the light seals for each and every roll doesn't appeal to me. I guess I'm not a matchbox purist.

Still, this really got me thinking. There were also evident flashes of insight here - especially the "frame counter" idea based on a plastic clicker that rides in one of the sprocket hole tracks. Bit of a problem with the fact that in the original design it prevents rewinding, but what a great idea for a low-tech (no-tech?) counter.

Thinking is a dangerous thing, no? I live in fear of the next time my wife says "You know, I've been thinking..." This generally means "I've come up with a great idea for our next home rennovation project that will eventually make you wish you'd been born a nomadic goat herder in Nepal" - no need to reno a tent, except with a patch now and then. But I digress.

I bought a tablesaw a while ago, but I haven't set it up yet - too busy. I was intending to build all sorts of nifty 4x5 film holder pinhole cameras when I set it up, but now I think I'll pass on those, for now. The deal is, I don't have ready darkroom access anymore: the halcyon days of the university photo club (with its forest of 4x5 enlargers) are gone. Yet, the matchbox design is 1-hour photo/scan to digital friendly. Hmm.

It was then I happened to notice a roll of aluminum flashing in the garage. I'd bought it to cover over a hole squirrels were using to get into my attic. They were so annoying, and so adept at getting past my defences, that I actually got up into the attic with my .22 one night when the wife and kids were out, with a pop-bottle silencer taped over the bore and a flashlight taped to the stock. Lucky for the little buggers I didn't get a clean line of sight. The (more pacifistic) solution proved to be the flashing in the end - folded double and securely screwed over the hole. They'd eaten their way through a thinner piece of aluminum like it was candy. But I'm digressing again.

Since you can only buy flashing in a 30ft roll, there was naturally some left over. When I noticed the roll the other night I thought to myself - "why not build an aluminum matchbox camera?"

So it was that when my wife came home from her weekly Bible study she found me at the kitchen table with aluminum scraps and bits of duct tape scattered everywhere. Her look was not so incredulous as you might think, because she's seen me like this before...

It took a few hours, but eventually I got what I wanted together. Here are some pictures to illustrate my creation, and allow anyone else interested to attempt a similar design. No need to recapitulate the squirrel part - just begin with the roll of flashing (I got mine at Home Depot, in the roofing section).

The first part is to basically build a small box that is exactly the same width as a 35mm film cannister, not including the protruding plastic spool. Then drill two holes in the box to let the spools protrude through. The box should be long enough space the cannisters about 5 cm apart (sorry Americans, it's all metric here. It's about time you adopted this system anyway. I'll never forget the time an American I know blasted Canada for using this weird system that made no sense, that no one else on the planet used, and why didn't we just get in line with everyone else and start using inches and feet like Europe does, etc etc. But I'm digressing again.)

The camera with cannister holders installed & pinhole mounted, plus the film guide,
and an old staple from a packing crate that is just the right size to fit snugly into the
spools to act as a no-tech winding knob.

Note how the corners of the box are not tightly joined together - this is important. You need a bit of flexibility to get the film cannisters into the holes. In order to have a light-proof, flexible seal, tape over the joint when it is slightly splayed open, then cover the joint with aluminum foil, then tape over the foil to make a foil "sandwich." Aluminum foil is lightproof and quite durable when backed with duct tape.

Once you've got the box built, fashion pieces to hold the cannisters in place. (You can score the flashing with a strong utility knife like an Olfa cutter - also from Home Depot - and then bend it back and forth to break it. If you work at it, you can also repeatedly score it and cut it through when needed. BTW, be careful - the edges of the cut flashing will be sharp). The next step is to make a film guide to fit between the cannister holders. I cut mine to the standard 24 x 36mm frame size (sorry, 15/16 inch x 1 5/8 inch) for starters, but I might experiment with other sizes later. A hint on the film guide - install it uncat under tensioned (sacrifical) film, and use a magic marker to color through the sprocket holes. This outlines exactly where the film will ride over the guide, allowing you to accurately cut out the image frame. Then last but not least, build a lid slightly bigger than the camera box itself, again sealing the corners with aluminum foil and duct tape.

The camera body (pinhole not yet mounted), film guide, and lid. You can
see the traced sprocket holes on the film guide if you look closely.

I light-proofed the camera with strips of foam inside the periphery of the lid. I also tuck loose pieces of foam around the cannisters to hold them in place, and to block light from entering through the holes for the film spools.

Last up was the shutter mechanism. It's a tab of aluminum with a thick piece of inner tube rubber taped to it facing the camera body. I made a track for it with two pieces of aluminum bent to accomodate it, with holes punched in them. The shutter tab also has a punched hole - when aligned with the pinhole this opens the shutter. I designed the shutter to push open in preparation for fitting a cable release to it.

Loading the camera requires installing the film guide, taping the film to the take-up spool (I use a spool designed for bulk loading since it is easy to open), loading the cannisters into their holes, tensioning the film, and then closing the camera body. I use strong elastics to hold everything together - an 8mm wide section of bicycle inner tube makes elastics of an ideal size and strength. Then it's ready to shoot!

The camera with the film guide installed.

The film cannisters in place and wedged/lightproofed with foam.

The finished camera, top view. Look closely and you can see the shutter as well.

The finished camera, bottom / back view.

The finished camera, front view, shutter closed.

The finished camera, front view, shutter open.

I'll reveal the results of the first test roll in the next posting! Stay tuned...

Pinhole shooting with a Konica Autoreflex T3n

2006-04-20T21:54:00.000-07:00

I promised a while ago I would post the exact details of how I'm using my Autoreflex to shoot pinhole. First off, I have to say that the Autoreflex is a great choice for pinhole shooting. They're cheap like borscht on ebay, because you can't easily get batteries for them any more. This leads to benefit #2: the Autoreflex T, T2 and T3/T3n bodies have completely mechanical Copal shutters, from 1/1000 right on down to "B" (avoid other models, like the "TC" which has an electronic, i.e. battery-dependent, shutter). This means that you don't need a battery, unless you want to use the meter, which generally you don't -when was the last time you used a TTL meter for pinhole? :o) (BTW, get a T3n if you can - it's a sweet SLR, one of the best Japanese SLRs ever made. It also has an easy-to-use multiple exposure lever - very handy for pinhole creativity). The third benefit is that lenses for these cameras are also dirt cheap, and some of the best glass available. This means that you not only get a great pinhole camera, you can take lens shots on the same roll whenever you want. The 50mm f1.7 lens is one of the sharpest SLR lenses ever made - eat your heart out Leica. The 40mm f1.8 "pancake" lens is also very sharp - and very portable to boot. Check out the "Konica Autoreflex" link on the sidebar for more info at an excellent site.

On the downside, they're built like tanks and heavy. Still, this means they've survived, and the weight keeps 'em still for long exposures...

Back to pinhole photography. The standard approach would be to use a body cap - but I've never owned one, so that wasn't an option. I did have a set of manual extension tubes, though. They are a series of black tubes that thread into a bayonet mount adaptor. There is another adaptor at the end you use to mount a lens. The other item I had available was an old-style 55mm thread-in metal lens cap - the kind that screw on like a filter.

Then I had an epiphany - the extension tubes are also 55mm in diameter, and use the same thread pattern - after all, there is a reversing tube that fits the filter thread of a 55m diameter lens as part of the set! Sure enough, the metal cap threads onto the ends of the non-reversing tubes just fine and makes a light-tight connection.

The upshot is, after mounting the pinhole in the metal cap, I can choose from many different focal lengths at whim, just by swapping tubes in or out. I tend to be a wide-angle type, so generally I've just used the bayonet adaptor in the camera with the cap screwed directly into it - a distance of about 45mm. All the tubes put together come out at around 90mm, and there are various intermediate combinations possible. Quite a versatile system, especially if one had extra metal caps with appropriately-sized pinholes for each distance. Guess what I've been after on ebay these days? Maybe this will increase demand for Autoreflexes and manual extension tube sets - although a body cap and a set of bayonet extension tubes would accomplish the same thing with any SLR. That picture of the extension tube set is off a current ebay auction if you're interested - but you'd better hurry!

Mounting a homebrew pinhole in a SLR body cap

2006-04-20T09:51:00.000-07:00

I've recently been selling pinholes on Ebay, and a few people have asked about mounting them into a SLR body cap. In some ways, this is the easiest way to get into pinhole shooting. Homebrew cameras designed for roll film (120, 35mm) are finicky to get right in terms of light-tightness, film advance/counting, loading mechanism, shutter design, etc. I should know - I was up late last night working on my first homebrew camera, based on the matchbox design, but made of sheet metal (stay tuned for an upcoming post). With a 35mm SLR all you need is a pinhole and a body cap to modify.

Basically all that is needed is to drill a hole through the center of the plastic cap and tape the pinhole into the inside of the cap, centered on the hole. I like to do a slightly more careful job: drill a small hole through the center of the cap from the inside, and then use a large drill bit to chamfer the hole from the outside. If you're a woodworker a countersink bit is excellent for this. This produces a cone shaped hole in the cap that prevents vignetting at wide angles. Click on the photo above for a visual guide.

Then simply tape the pinhole over the cap hole with black tape. Use either electrical tape, or better still black cloth hockey tape (how can you tell I'm Canadian?), which is non reflective. Viola, you are ready to go create your pinhole masterpiece.

If you need a pinhole, search for "custom pinhole" on Ebay and look for my auctions (my Ebay handle is "gabriel531"). I can make you an excellent pinhole that is the best size for your focal length.

Test Roll - Getting Ready for World Pinhole Day!

2006-04-15T23:17:00.000-07:00

I've decided to get back into photography as an "art" form, in addition to the "documentary" photography I have recently been restricted to. Alas, the move has stripped me of my darkroom access, so I have decided to get back into pinhole photography. I'm keeping it simple - using a 35 mm SLR converted to pinhole use. This allows me to have film processed almost anywhere and scanned. I would like to get back into the darkroom someday, but with small kids it's not really an option.

This blog will be for the "art" side of things, whereas the "documentary" side will continue unabated over at the usual spot.

The jump back into pinhole photography was spurred in part by the upcoming World Pinhole Day, in which I hope to participate this year. These shots were taken near/around the TWU campus. The first shot was with a 400 micron pinhole at 45mm (and thus ~ f115); the others were taken with a 250 micron pinhole at the same focal length (and thus at about f125). All three exposures were for 4 seconds on Fuji color print film (ASA 200) using a Konica Autoreflex SLR. The exact means by which I have converted this SLR to pinhole shooting will be the subject of a future posting.

Enjoy!