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.
