Sunday, April 24, 2016

Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day

For a long time I didn't post because I had no time for further experiments but soon I will return with more funny things, I hope!

Today is the Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day, so I want to show you an interesting experiment I made. Normally in a pinhole film photograph you will almost never see moving objects. To get a sharp photo you have to use a small hole but a small hole means less light and for the most films you need to expose for seconds. And every movement will produce blurred images or only fogged areas or nothing if the object moves very fast.

One could think how to overcome this problem by using very fast films and pushing the development. This is what I made using an old Agfa Synchro Box without lens. In its place I putted a pinhole of 0.5mm, giving a f number of more than 270. The camera has a speed of about 1:50 in instant setting. I used a 3200 ISO film to take some instant pinhole photos and developed in parodinal developer in dilution 1:50 for one hour, stand. Yes, there appeared some images. The film was very dark (fogged by a so long development) but all 8 pictures, taken in a sunny day with some clouds could be scanned and gave usable photos.




In a near future, however, I will try to repeat this experiment with a much smaller camera format like 35 mm or less, using a very small focal for the pinhole. So, instead of a f number of 270, I can use about 100. For instances, using a 0.2 mm hole, I calculate a 24 mm focal length, giving a f number of 120. This f number allows speeds of 1/50 for 3200 ISO and pushing to 6400 or more, even 1/100 in a sunny day.

We will see!!!