Negative or positive papers for PH-cameras?

[onkeltuka]

So I'm a bit confused with what's the difference between using negative or positive photographic paper in a pinhole camera. Is the idea behind using straight negative paper to make contact print with it later? Then the only reason for opting to use negative over positive paper would be that you could make several prints with your one negative? Does a paper negative contact print with a regular enlarger, or do you need a stronger light source?

I ordered a 120-film using pinhole camera, but would also be interested in diy-ing ones that use shoot on (larger) paper, mainly because the bigger films are so expensive.

Thanks!

 

[ciniframe]

Positive paper is very slow, ISO 3 or less. Fiber based, so longer wash times. And used directly forms a mirror reversed image so that any writing appearing in the image would be backward, for instance. The image would be flipped, left to right. This may not bother sone folks, ( drives me mad) so that is a personal preference sort of thing.
A person could build a configuration like a Polaroid One Step, where a first surface mirror at 45 degrees to the light path flips the image back to the correct orientation.
There is a much larger choice of regular paper, and it can be cheaper.
And, if I recall correctly, regular paper can be reversal processed to get a positive image but, it’s more complicated than just ‘develop, stop, fix, wash’.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Yes, correct, ordinary photographic paper can be reversed to a positive in processing by much the same process you'd use to make slides from, say, Fomapan 100.

I'd think making a pinhole camera with a mirror to right the image would involve some futzing around with blocking directly light from the (very wide acceptance angle) pinhole -- something that isn't much of a problem with glass lenses and their limited image circles. At the least, you have to have a baffle of some sort in the camera.