Monthly Shooting Assignment - Jan/Feb 2014 - Cheap camera challenge!

Second try is drying! it seems a lot more even but still is unsharp, and I went through the process of completely re-doing the "lens" (hole) and sanding and measuring etc.

Well I think this will be my final entry.

It takes me a long time to do this for just one image but it was totally worth it, however I think I'll have to wait until I can get a real lens (and camera) that covers 11x14...

Also stripping the neg is a pain, it's hard to get even development on both sides so you have to strip the side that's against the tube wall.

I do kinda like that the corners are missing, gives it that "custom made" look, but it's uneven.

I had a mishap and one of the sheets fell out of the "holder" so I wasted one (plus travel to a spot to shoot it) and then re-designed the holder to grab more of the edge for the second shot.



This whole MSA has been a learning experience in design and given me a new respect for camera makers and photographers from 100 years ago.

I also totally realized mid way through development that I never heated up the development to temperature so I measured it, and it was at 60 degrees Fahrenheit (instead of my normal 68, so at 6 minutes I dumped and added 225ml (which is all the tank holds) for another 3 minute run (total of 9 minutes at 60 degrees Rodinal 1:50).

It was an estimation of the difference in temperature and the action on the developer. It looks like I guesstimated pretty well (I think...?).

MSA submission number 3.2

The official 3rd submission never happened, the piece of film fell out in the camera and never exposed, so this is v3.2

Snow White... This is the larger version, smaller is in the Gallery with more details, scanned in 4 parts and merged together in photoshop but no major adjustments were made to the photo.

StoneNYC said:

MSA submission number 3.2

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That came out great... a good contrasty subject for pinhole! Very nice!

Meet Red Rooster Cam and Goat Rock Cam, two of my favorite pinhole cameras. Sorry they were not constructed just for MSA. Taylor Maid Farms is a favorite coffee roasting company here in Sonoma County, California. I actually roast my own coffee, but friends are happy to save these for me.



These cans are great for pinhole because there is a lip inside the rim to hold a 5x7 paper negative perfectly. The lip also supports a black paper insert as a light seal. I think they are light tight, but I put a small piece of aluminum foil on top as a failsafe, which also indicates they are loaded. The pinholes were made from drink can aluminum, and the shutters are tape. Red Rooster Cam has built in "rise", and if you want "fall" just turn it upside-down! Both are spray painted flat black inside, and I usually use "pearl" paper to reduce reflections. GRC has a distictive blockage on one end, RRC has a shiny spot that makes a flare on the right side of every picture... these are part of the "character" of the cameras and I like them as they are.

You can see a few more photos from the cameras here: http://www.ipernity.com/doc/295785/album/357355

We are having an unusually dry winter, so the first MSA picture is a reservoir where I often walk the dog. I have never seen it this low. The camera location is usually under more than 15 feet of water!

Here is RRC making the MSA photo a week ago:



Yesterday we finally got some rain so here is Goat Rock Cam making a counterpoint photo:




And here are the results. The first is a contact print and the second is a neg scan:

Ned - that is extremely cool. Do you have a reference that explains how to build one of those?

NedL said:

Meet Red Rooster Cam and Goat Rock Cam, two of my favorite pinhole cameras.
And here are the results. The first is a contact print and the second is a neg scan:

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Hi Ned,
Great images both! After looking at both for a while I decided I like the second one best, for the composition of the trees.
You're a fine ambassador for pinhole photography!

Bert from Holland
http://thetoadmen.blogspot.nl

Wow Ned! Those are gorgeous! The oaks especially. As always your pinhole images are inspirational.

Here's a couple more of mine from Maui:





More details about them in the gallery.

Hatchetman said:

... Do you have a reference that explains how to build one of those?

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Hatchetman, very simple ( and very fun too! ) I'll write a short thread about it in the pinhole forum and send you the link.

TheToadMen said:

...You're a fine ambassador for pinhole photography!...

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Thanks Bert!! I'd say you do very well in that regard too!

Sly, I know kiawe trees very well... and so do my feet. The thorns have no trouble going through flip-flops or thin-soled sneakers. My dad and I used to go diving at Makena when it was still on a dirt road and you had to walk through the kiawe forests to get to the beach. I think the 2nd one would make a perfect 11x14 print!

Shot with free graphic pack film but shot with modern camera, scanned using quarters to hold it down instead of the film holders.

GAF-Ansco Super Hypam expired in the 1960's

Shot with my 4x5

NedL said:

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I love this one!

Very, very nice!

Thank you Pelo78!

FINALLY!!
I finally found some time this evening to tinker something for this MSA. I passed my last exams last week (Lean Expert Black Belt) so I don't have to spend all my free time studying and making reports for the exams anymore. So, I made a start today.

I bought a new garden table last summer. It came in two large cardboard boxes each 100x170 cm (40x68 inch), that I saved to build a prototype ULF camera for a Wollaston meniscus lens made by Reinhold: a lens with 790 mm (31 inch) focal length and a diameter of 153 mm (6 inch). It will cover negatives from 1.4 meter/56 inch (@ infinity) up to 1.8 meter/72 inch. The cardboard prototype camera will be a template to build a wooden camera, after I decided on the specifics about the right focal length (bellow draw) to use it as a "point & shoot ULF camera" for landscapes .

But - inspired by Stone - I'm gonna use the cardboard to make a very ULF pinhole camera for this MSA, that I can later transform into a lens camera (maybe).

These are the measures of my design:

- focal length = 600 mm (24 inch)
- pinhole diameter = 1.0 mm
- f-number: 1/600
- negative size: 500x600 mm (20x24 inch)
- angle of view: 66.66 degrees.
I'll call it my "600 pincam" or something.

The pinhole will be made out of an empty soda can.

I was also given an open box of very, very old Ilford B&W photo paper size 51x61 cm (20x24 inch) for free some time ago. I'm gonna use it as a paper negative in this camera. I have no idea if this paper is still any good at all, but we'll see.
Developing will be with a sponge on a table top with some left over developer, since my trays are too small.

Total costs: 0.00!! Since it was all for free. I'll even use some old Duct tape, that was also given to me - instead of throwing it away - for being old & sticky but still somewhat usable. This should fit this MSA theme perfectly!

I started measuring, cutting and folding the the cardboard tonight and taped the first parts together.

The total size of the camera will be 90x98x60 cm (36x39x24 inch) so it will be hugh. I taped the four sides together. This weekend I'm gonna make two lids for it: one front lid with the pinhole and one back lid to tape the negative into. It will be a single shot camera. Maximum negative size will be about 80x90 cm (32x36 inch).

So the Ilford paper will fit in nicely. And when I use three sheets of normal photo paper (30x40 cm/12x16 inch) togehter. I can even make some nice panorama shots (40x90 cm/16x36 inch) for contact printing processes like gum, cyanotype or salt printing.
Or make some multi-pinhole exposures, or ...

But first finishing the simple version this weekend and make a test shot - if weather permits (forcast: a lot of rain and wind). I'm gonna put four old quarry tiles at the bottom for stability. I'll make some snapshots of the camera this weekend and post it here.
And I should be able to post a test shot here before the end of the month, shouldn't I?

Oh, and I must calculate (=guestimate) the exposure times. The exposure factor compared to f/22 is 743 x. That is without reciprocity failure.
I'll rate the photo paper @ ISO 2. An exposure of 1 second @ f/22 compares to 12.5 minutes @ f/600. And an exposure of 40 seconds equals 8.5 hours ;-)
So, making some indoor test shots (on smaller sheets) will take some time... but that's okay: it's my birthday this Friday and I hope to get some books so I can read while exposing the photo paper. Now that I think of it, I could make a setup for a self portrait, reading a book in a chair under some bright lights.

To be continued ...

Wow Bert!

1 ASA ouch!

I would set it up outside and just leave it all day hah!

My 100 ASA x-ray film was about 6 minutes.

So, yep 6-8 hours ouch, good luck! Glad to have been some inspiration.

Well, dam, Bert, and all you other build-it-yourself guys, I'm feeling like my Holga is over the top, and downright lazy. I've done lots of DIY stuff in my life, but it's mostly been about gardening, cooking, or textiles. My one attempt at punching out my own pinhole and making a cardboard box camera was very disappointing.

None-the-less, here are neg scans of some of my colour pinhole images. Shot on 120 Lomo film. I assume that's rebranded something or other.

sly said:

...None-the-less, here are neg scans of some of my colour pinhole images...

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I like all three of these very much! My favorite is the third but I have a thing about skies....

TheToadMen said:

FINALLY!!.....

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That sounds like great fun! I know you didn't ask but I got out my calculator and thinking cap... I think a pinhole of 0.85 or 0.83mm might do a bit better, accounting for the mostly blue/uv sensitivity of that paper. Also I don't think you are going to find exposures to be all that bad. Most of my pinhole cameras are F/300-something. Yours will only be a couple stops slower. My "sunny 16" bright sun exposures range from 20 to 45 seconds depending on paper and camera... that's pre-flashed paper around iso 12, so figure 2 or 3 stops slower for your paper and 2 stops for your F/700-something. I think 15 or 20 minutes has a good chance to work well in bright sun. I do think it will be hard to test indoors where the light will be much less blue! Have fun that's great!

Sly, the third is great

Great work in this MSA!
(Bert 2)

Hello Sly,
Don't look too much at the type of "light tight box" the film was in: it is the result (i.e. the print) that counts!!
And yours are very fine, indeed! I couldn't decide if I liked the first or the last best. The last is a great landscape shot with very nice colours and a beautiful sky. But - because of the composition - I like the first also very much. The second image must be great to print it very, very large (like 4 feet high) and hang it on a wall.
The Holga panoramic pinhole camera is a very good camera, so don't be ashamed. It is still just a piece of plastic with only one guarantee from the factory: light leeks ;-) So it fits right into this MSA.
And good of you to use color films. Pinhole always give some nice off-colours, don't it? I never correct it when I scan the negatives.
Bert from Holland

sly said:

Well, dam, Bert, and all you other build-it-yourself guys, I'm feeling like my Holga is over the top, and downright lazy. I've done lots of DIY stuff in my life, but it's mostly been about gardening, cooking, or textiles. My one attempt at punching out my own pinhole and making a cardboard box camera was very disappointing.

None-the-less, here are neg scans of some of my colour pinhole images. Shot on 120 Lomo film. I assume that's rebranded something or other.

View attachment 82063

View attachment 82064

View attachment 82065

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Hi Ned,
I didn't ask, but was hoping/expecting someone would check my math, so thank you for the help.
When I want to do it the easy way, I just use the Pinhole Designer program. Unfortunately, the older Mac version doesn't work anymore with the current OSX version, but the Windows version still works.
It uses the Lord Rayleigh formular for the calculations. It gives an "ideal" pinhole size of (just over) 1 mm for a focal length of 600 mm. Usually I tend to make my pinhole a bit smaller, so 0.85 might be just fine. I even thought of a smaller pinhole of 0.6 mm to get a f-number of 1000. Sounds magical and I love long time exposures.
BTW: How did you calculate the 0.85 mm?

For exposure with film (often Fuji NPC 160) I expose as a Sunny 16 for a about 30 to 50 seconds. Photo papers is like 7 stops slower, so on a sunny day (in winter) I would make my first test shot (on a small sheet) about 15 minutes for starters. That's close to your estimates, so it should work. I hope to test the first images next Sunday - when weather permits...
It the weather is too bad, I'll put the box in my living room in the morning, open the shutter and close it after supper in the evening.

I never pre flashed paper before, but want to try that sometimes. Have to find out how to first, though. I have a box of Ilford Direct Positive paper, that I haven't tried yet. It's my understanding that preflashing helps to tame the contrast of this paper.
Thanks,
Bert from Holland

NedL said:

That sounds like great fun! I know you didn't ask but I got out my calculator and thinking cap... I think a pinhole of 0.85 or 0.83mm might do a bit better, accounting for the mostly blue/uv sensitivity of that paper. Also I don't think you are going to find exposures to be all that bad. Most of my pinhole cameras are F/300-something. Yours will only be a couple stops slower. My "sunny 16" bright sun exposures range from 20 to 45 seconds depending on paper and camera... that's pre-flashed paper around iso 12, so figure 2 or 3 stops slower for your paper and 2 stops for your F/700-something. I think 15 or 20 minutes has a good chance to work well in bright sun. I do think it will be hard to test indoors where the light will be much less blue! Have fun that's great!

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Hi Bert,

In that paper, Lord Rayleigh references Capt. Abney's work on varying the aperture in landscape work. I'm using Capt. Abney's book as my directions for making calotypes. Everything is connected eventually!

My understanding is that there are two ways to approach the problem. The one used by Rayleigh gets to maximum resolution. Calculations based on the Airy disk try to maximize the contrast. Ralph Lambrecht has posts here at APUG about this, and I think I got my constant of 1.56 from something he wrote. Oversimplifying, if we want to have the first diffraction rings coincide at a particular wavelength, it should provide maximum contrast and "perceived sharpness".

I used: d = c * sqrt( w * f )

c = constant
d = pinhole diameter
w = wavelength of light
f = "focal length"

I like to use 475 or 500 nanometer wavelength for paper, and a constant of 1.56, so:

0.854 = 1.56 * sqrt( 5e-4 * 600 ) all units are mm.

But just like you I tend to cheat toward a smaller one... and use 475nm or a constant of 1.5 or 1.45. I think a lot of UV goes through and that's why our experience pushes us that direction.

Have fun!

Hi Ned,
I used even a smaller one (as you suggested): a pinhole of 0.6 mm. I finally taped the whole box together. I even made a large door, hinged with Duckt tape alone! The camera is big enough for me to get inside and fix a pinhole or the paper negative

I made a quick test shot just before dawn to see if it worked at all. I used a 8x10" Ilford B&W paper first because I have only 9 sheets of the 20x24" Ilford B&W paper. Since I have a f-number of f 1/1000 and ISO of 2 I had a calculated exposure time of 2 houres. It was already 17.20 hours (5.20 PM) and the sun sets at about 18.00 (6.00 PM). But I tried anyway and wouldn't mind if it was underexposed since it was a simple first test.



I placed the camera in my garden, opened the shutter and got me a chair and a book. I sat for about 20 minutes and went inside. I left the shutter open until about 15 minutes after sunset. The total exposure time was about 1 hour. I then took the camera back to the darkroom (wouldn't almost not fit through the staircase) to be opened under a darkroom safe light.
And then the light bulb popped ...
So - in total darkness - I opened the camera, took the paper negative out and dropped it in the developer tray. Luckily I always work from left to right so I new what tray would be the developer. After counting out loud I pulled the negative after 1 minute and dropped it in the stop and fixing tray. Then finally turned the light on to see if there was anything there. And there was!

So - for an totally unprofessional test - I was very happy, since the camera worked. the negative itself is underexposed off course, but there is a nice sharp image. I turned off the light again and loaded the camera again in total darkness with the 20x24" paper and taped the camera up again.

This week (Thursday?) I'll make a real exposure and will develop properly (as far as possible with this size since I don't have a tray for it). I hope I'll find the time this week to finish this paper negative and post before Saturday, making the deadline of this MSA at the end of this month.
To be continued ...

This is the test negative (underexposed & improperly scanned):

Bert, that IS impressive - and the result is excellent. Well done.

Well done Bert. Can't wait to see a huge negative from that camera.

One week left people! Shoot 'em if ya got 'em!

TheToadMen said:

... almost not fit through the staircase...

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Fantastic, that is a huge pinhole camera!
Looks like it is working very well. And you had an adventure developing, but it worked! Can't wait to see results from the BIG negative. That will be a challenge to develop and also to scan or photograph or contact print!