LF pinhole lens boards?

[mfohl]

Hello Folks, I already shoot large format, and even LF pinhole. I have a 3" Leonardi. There are two companies (or groups) on the auction site that sell pinhole lensboards for specific cameras. I'm thinking of getting one for my Technika. Does anybody have any experience with any of these? Pros and Cons?

Thanks in advance,

-- Mark

 

[abruzzi]

I’d love to see links. I looked a while back but couldn’t find anything.

 

[pmviewcam]

Pinholeedun (http://www.pinholeedun.com/) makes very good pinholes, either sheets of metal or sandwiched on circles of a thin material. I use the circles but a friend who used to build pinhole cameras prefers the sheets, which he sandwiched between to thin metal washers. We then just glue the pinholes to the back of a technika board, cheap Chinese from eBay. They work exceptionally well.

 

[pmviewcam]

I saw a 3D-printed Technika board/pinhole selling from somebody in Canada on the auction site. The idea is a good one, although I would have some minor doubts about how robust the PLA/ABS might be to knocks and such. It would need a high percentage of infill both for strength and opacity. I had some 3D-printed 3mm lensboards for a 7x5 Seneca which needed 100% infill to be really opague, and even then I put 3 coats of matt black paint over the top. They were very rigid though.

The other concern is the quality of the pinholes themselves: that's why I would recommend sourcing a known high quality pinhole and glue it to a metal Technika-style board. There are quite a few no brand Technika boards drilled for a Copal 0 shutter (about 32mm I think) on the auction site for about $25 or so. In terms of pinhole quality, PinholeEdun uses micro-cobalt drilled pinholes, which a metallurgist friend examined under a 100x microscope and found a variation of about 3 microns in the pinhole. There are others (like Reality So Subtle) that sell laser-drilled pinholes.