Photography – Page 3 – Cameron Young

Digital Pinhole

Over the years I have made or purchased countless pinhole cameras. What they all have in common is that they recorded the image either onto film or photographic paper. I had always hoped that a pinhole lens on a digital camera would be a viable option, but unfortunately, I have never been satisfied with the results. Here are four different options that I have tried for my Olympus Micro 4/3 camera.

All of the photographs were taken under the same conditions with only the levels adjusted in Photoshop.

Pinhole Body Cap

Quite simple. A body cap with a hole drilled in it and a pinhole put in place.

Pinhole Rising

I bought this commercially made pinhole body cap from a local camera store. It is a body cap with a metal insert that has the pinhole drilled in it.

Wanderlust Pinwide.

I got this one by supporting the original Kickstarter campaign. Made of plastic. It extends well into the camera body and is very close to the sensor.

Thingyfy Pinhole Pro S

Well made of metal and like the Pinwide, extends well into the camera body.

Final Thoughts

The Pinhole body cap produced images that are sharper than the Rising Pinhole.

The Wanderlust Pinwide has the widest field of view with some vignetting at the corners. In my opinion it is the sharpest of all 4 lenses.

Both the Pinwide and the Thingyfy show the yellow “blotch” in the upper right side of the image. The Pinwide exhibits this more than the Thingyfy. This “blotch” is caused by the angle at which the light hits the sensor. If the image is converted to black and white it is a non-issue.

All 4 of the lenses produce reasonable results in the Micro 4/3 format, but don’t produce the same image quality that can be had shooting film.

Aqua Oculus

I first became interested in how elements of the environment could participate in the image making process during the “Beneath” project. For “Beneath” I was using a modified film development tank as a pinhole camera. As I was filling the tank with water in order to make the photograph, I realized that the water became an active component in the image making process.

I was interested in seeing how the water collected from the environment where the image was being made, could contribute to the final image. The clarity and quality of the water all had an effect on the final image.

I constructed the camera around a 4×5 film holder and a salvaged shutter from a discarded Nettar camera. I created a compartment in the front of the camera to hold a plastic sphere that I could fill with water. I filled the sphere with water that I collected on location, placed it in the compartment and taped it shut to make it light tight. The light entered through the shutter and the water filled sphere became the lens to form the image.

I made the exposures onto photo paper that I had loaded into the film holder. Most of the images had exposure times of 1/25 of a second.

Watergrams

I have been working the past few weeks in the darkroom creating watergrams, which are photograms water movement. Sometimes I float additional objects on the water’s surface.

Anamorphic Pinhole

A new group of anamorphic pinole photographs that I shot over the summer. I printed them as cyanotypes and toned them using green tea.

Gum Bichromate Prints

I have simplified my gum printing process. I am using oiled, plain paper negatives on unpreshrunk and unsized Stonehenge paper. I am printing a single layer of a Burn Umber / Ivory Black mix.

Cyanotype on Stone

Have been experimenting with printing cyanotype on stones. Two coats of cyanotype solution and a 13 minute exposure using a digital negative seems to be working well.

Back to the Start

The Asahi Pentax SP1000 was my first camera. I bought it in England in 1975 and used it extensively for a number of years. Later when I upgraded to an Olympus OM1, I foolishly lent the Pentax to a friend and never got it back.

I recently found one in good condition online and couldn’t resist it. It is just as I remembered it – built like a tank and with a very satisfying thunk when the shutter is pressed. Although it doesn’t require a battery to operate, I was pleasantly surprised that the meter works with a new battery.

Shot a couple of rolls of Rollei RPX 100 and was very happy this the results. Not bad for a 46 year old camera.

Winter Walk

Afghan Box Camera Update

Worked this week on the film holder and focus mechanism. I found this surprisingly hard to build and tested multiple designs before settling on this one.

The biggest challenge was getting the focus/film holder to slide smoothly and evenly on the rails. Next up – the rear door, arm hole and lid.

Kamra-E-Faoree (Afghan Box Camera)

As a project this year, I am attempting to make a Kamra-E-Faoree, also known as the Afghan box camera. There is a lot of information and great example of images taken with this type of camera in Lukas Birk’s book “Box Camera Now“

Here is what I have constructed so far:

I have constructed the body, the focusing screen/film holder and the internal supports for film holder and focus rod. I will use a 135mm f4.7 Graphlex Optar lens on the camera. I mounted the lens and it projects a nice image on the ground glass that I made out of an acrylic sheet. I have made it so the film holder can be rotated so both horizontal and vertical pictures can be taken.

Next I will be making the rear door, the arm hole and the lid.

Here are some videos that show the camera in operation and the construction steps