Pinhole board for 4x5 Calumet?

markbarendt · Apr 17, 2009

My new camera has me thinking creatively.

Are there pinhole boards that can drop in place of the standard lens boards?

Jeff Bannow · Apr 17, 2009

There is a person on eBay selling a neat pinhole system. It's called a Skink pinhole. It fits into any copal 0 drilled board and allows you to swap out different sized pinholes, zone plates, and such. Very neat, and pretty cheap too.

BradS · Apr 17, 2009

or, you could simply tape a piece of aluminum foil over the hole of an empty lens board and poke a hole in it with a pin....well, it works for me. Really cheap too.

markbarendt · Apr 17, 2009

I like cheap, I'll try the aluminum foil trick.

The only thing I don't like about the aluminum foil is that it's fragile and I would imagine pinhole size consistency might be an issue which would mess with the exposure consistency.

Jeff Bannow · Apr 17, 2009

The Skink pinhole is only about $25 if you want something a little nicer than foil. Nothing beats free though.

BradS · Apr 17, 2009

markbarendt said:
I like cheap, I'll try the aluminum foil trick.

The only thing I don't like about the aluminum foil is that it's fragile and I would imagine pinhole size consistency might be an issue which would mess with the exposure consistency.

With pinhole, you'll usually be kinda guestimating exposures anyway so, you kinda have to free yourself from worring too much about the little things.

True, the foil is fragile. It works best if you also make some kind of shutter so that you don't actually ever touch the foil. I usually tape the foil to the inside of the lensboard and use a piece of card stock to fashion a primative shutter to the outside. You can evensandwich the foil between a couple of small pieces of corregated cardboard on the inside of the lensboard. This way the foil stands off from the lens board a little bit and survives much longer.

The cool part about using foil is that you can easily experiment with differnt size and shape pinholes.

markbarendt · Apr 17, 2009

Jeff,

I saw the Skink and may go that way. I'd need another lensboard to do that though so I'm thinking that I can find a piece of steel, or even 2 or 3 pieces, that I can fashion solid lensboards from and drill various pinholes.

DWThomas · Apr 17, 2009

In 2005 I used birch plywood left from a project for a lensboard (the edges had to be milled down to an appropriate thickness). Made a pinhole from aluminum soda can sidewall, using the classic dimple-and-sand technique to outfit a B&J Press.

It worked!

DaveT

BradS · Apr 17, 2009

DWThomas said:
In 2005 I used birch plywood left from a project for a lensboard (the edges had to be milled down to an appropriate thickness). Made a pinhole from aluminum soda can sidewall, using the classic dimple-and-sand technique to outfit a B&J Press.

It worked!

DaveT

Very nicely done! Thanks for sharing. I like your shutter. Looks like you could reasonably get into the fractions of a second with it....again, thanks.

DWThomas · Apr 17, 2009

BradS said:
Very nicely done! Thanks for sharing. I like your shutter. Looks like you could reasonably get into the fractions of a second with it....again, thanks.

Thanks! Dunno about sub-second shutter speeds -- maybe it's my advancing age and decrepitude, but I think even a second would be hard to do repeatably. The pivot screw tensions the shutter lever against a paper friction washer, the shutter stays wherever it's put. The other roundhead screws limit the travel. I originally bought ISO 400 film, but after seeing the times down around the 1 second mark, I ordered some Delta 100 to get out in the five to ten seconds (or more on the inevitably cloudy WPPD) range.

Backing up on that link will also show a much more elaborate body cap adapter I did for my Bronica SQ-A, as well as the last four year's WPPD results. I think this year I'll go back to the B&J to use up the remnants of that film that's now four years old.

DaveT

wildbillbugman · Apr 17, 2009

HI,
I am getting back into pinhole photography, having been inspired by a Gallary photo in APUG. What inspired me the most was the sharpness of this particular image. I do like sharp images and hope that I can equal the sharpnes I have seen in some (few) pinholes.
My question is: Is not sharpness directly related to the uniformity,as well as the size, of the hole. Would not a laser drilled hole yield a sharper image than a pin prick of the same diameter?
Regards,
Bill

DWThomas · Apr 18, 2009

wildbillbugman said:
HI,
My question is: Is not sharpness directly related to the uniformity,as well as the size, of the hole. Would not a laser drilled hole yield a sharper image than a pin prick of the same diameter?
Regards,
Bill

Yes, likely; it's a sure bet just pushing a pin through foil or thin sheet stock will produce curled edges and occasional cracks along the edge. The type of pinholes I have made are not exactly a pin prick. A pin or needle is used to emboss a small "pimple" without actually piercing the metal, then the pimple is sanded with a gentle circular motion, generally with very fine (#400 or #600) wet sandpaper. This can produce a fairly uniform hole with a knife edge, which is also desirable. It also can be done in several iterations, working from each side. The method is described in a number of articles on making pinhole cameras.

I believe larger format cameras tend to produce sharper results also.

DaveT

nsurit · Apr 18, 2009

If you really get hooked you might check here: http://www.pinholeresource.com/shop/shop?page=shop.browse&category_id=14

<{B^) Bill Barber

Roger Thoms · Apr 18, 2009

DWThomas said:
In 2005 I used birch plywood left from a project for a lensboard (the edges had to be milled down to an appropriate thickness). Made a pinhole from aluminum soda can sidewall, using the classic dimple-and-sand technique to outfit a B&J Press.

It worked!

DaveT

Nice job, I'm building an 5 1/2" x 14" pinhole camera out of 1/4" bamboo plywood, may see a very similar shutter on it, that is if you don't mind. Remember World Wide Pinhole Day is April 26th. http://www.pinholeday.org/

Thanks,
Roger Thoms

DWThomas · Apr 18, 2009

rtbadman said:
... may see a very similar shutter on it, that is if you don't mind. Remember World Wide Pinhole Day is April 26th. http://www.pinholeday.org/

No problem -- something about an object with a design obvious to practitioners of an art can't be patented.

Yes, I'm slowly getting myself organized toward the 26th.

DaveT

markbarendt · Apr 18, 2009

nsurit said:
If you really get hooked you might check here: http://www.pinholeresource.com/shop/shop?page=shop.browse&category_id=14

<{B^) Bill Barber

Ohhh that turret is nice.

David Nebenzahl · Apr 22, 2009

Ah, pinholes: a thread like this could go on forever. Just a couple things:

* $25 for a pinhole?!?!?!? That's ridiculous. Unless you're hopelessly incompetent, make one yourself.

* Aluminum foil is for schoolkids making a camera out of an oatmeal box. The other person who used a piece of a soda can was closer to the right stuff. Better yet, get yourself some thin brass shim material (available in the U.S. at most places that stock K&S metals, like hardware stores); 0.003 works well.

* Without getting too much into the nitty-gritty of it, contrary to what someone said here, it's actually pretty easy to get a pinhole of a known size. I use a microscope (I have a kid's cheapie one). The trick is to use a gauge to measure the hole size with. I use a few pieces of music wire (guitar strings) of known sizes: 0.009", 0.010", etc. All you need to do is view the hole and the gauge together to get a fairly accurate measurement; from that you can compute the aperture (f-stop) of the pinhole. (To make the pinhole, I use a sewing needle and a piece of hardwood under the metal.)

Jeff Bannow · Apr 22, 2009

David Nebenzahl said:
Ah, pinholes: a thread like this could go on forever. Just a couple things:

* $25 for a pinhole?!?!?!? That's ridiculous. Unless you're hopelessly incompetent, make one yourself.

In all fairness, the $25 doesn't get you a pinhole but rather a machined adapter to affix to your lens board. It is very slick for the money and worth it IMO.

DWThomas · Apr 22, 2009

David Nebenzahl said:
The other person who used a piece of a soda can was closer to the right stuff. Better yet, get yourself some thin brass shim material (available in the U.S. at most places that stock K&S metals, like hardware stores); 0.003 works well.

* Without getting too much into the nitty-gritty of it, contrary to what someone said here, it's actually pretty easy to get a pinhole of a known size. I use a microscope (I have a kid's cheapie one). The trick is to use a gauge to measure the hole size with. I use a few pieces of music wire (guitar strings) of known sizes: 0.009", 0.010", etc. All you need to do is view the hole and the gauge together to get a fairly accurate measurement; from that you can compute the aperture (f-stop) of the pinhole. (To make the pinhole, I use a sewing needle and a piece of hardwood under the metal.)

The soda can sidewall I used was .004 inch thick (one sometimes wonders how they hold the soda in), but for my SQ-Hole body cap adapter, I used 2 mil brass shim stock from indeed, a K&S selection.

From days of mucking about with circuit boards and the like, I have a direct reading microscope that has a scale. The only problem is it's hand held with an angled reflector fitting on the end and a bit tedious to use. I'm pretty convinced my measurements are within .0005, which is close enough.

DaveT

BradS · Apr 22, 2009

DWThomas said:
I'm pretty convinced my measurements are within .0005, which is close enough.

DaveT

OMG! (LOL) that's funny!

I used a micrometer to measure the diameter of the pin that made the pinhole in the aluminum foil...exposure is strictly guesstimate...'looks like ten seconds oughtta do".

David Nebenzahl said:
* Aluminum foil is for schoolkids making a camera out of an oatmeal box.

...and for people who just wanna have fun and make interesting photos on the cheap. I guess I never have grown up....

David Nebenzahl · Apr 23, 2009

BradS said:
David Nebenzahl said:

* Aluminum foil is for schoolkids making a camera out of an oatmeal box.

Click to expand...

...and for people who just wanna have fun and make interesting photos on the cheap. I guess I never have grown up....

Sorry, didn't want to come off all elitist there; quite the opposite.

Yes, tinfoil is just fine to experiment with, for kids of all ages.

Hell, one of my unrealized ideas is to make an edible pinhole camera (everything except the film); the pinhole could be something like a hole in a cookie or graham cracker. Load the camera, take the picture, unload the film, then eat the camera.

Nige · Apr 23, 2009

I made a pinhole lensboard for this weekends WPD by glueing 4 layers of mattboard together. Made two pieces 87mm square and the other two 100mm, stuck them together and it fits perfectly. Used a holesaw to make a decent sized hole in the middle and taped my aluminium can pinhole across the hole (I choose to tape it across the back as it looked better!!!!). To measure the pinhole I put it in a enlarger and project the hole onto a piece of paper to check it's round and to measure it. I then use the magnification ratio of the enlarger to calculate the pinhole size. Seems to work out close enough

Jim Goodin · Nov 5, 2021

BradS said:
or, you could simply tape a piece of aluminum foil over the hole of an empty lens board and poke a hole in it with a pin....well, it works for me. Really cheap too.

Thanks for this suggestion and thread Brad! As simply maybe obvious I never thought of and have been experimenting with DIY adapted pinhole insert on my Calumet cc400 for a couple of weeks. I have been thinking my matboard insert was not light tight enough of late after varying exposure and measuring my hole obsessibly, thinking I'm getting fogging. I just tried your foil idea on my stock lensboard and am going to give a try tomorrow!

narsuitus · Nov 6, 2021

Jim Goodin said:
... have been experimenting with DIY adapted pinhole insert on my Calumet cc400 for a couple of weeks.

I look forward to seeing your images.
I used a #15 needle to make a pinhole with a 0.3mm diameter in .003 inch thick piece of copper foil.
I drilled a small hole in a wooden lens board and taped the piece of cooper foil over the hole.
I mounted the lens board on my Calumet CC-402 wide-field/short-monorail 4x5 inch view camera.

Jim Goodin · Nov 6, 2021

narsuitus said:
I look forward to seeing your images.
I used a #15 needle to make a pinhole with a 0.3mm diameter in .003 inch thick piece of copper foil.
I drilled a small hole in a wooden lens board and taped the piece of cooper foil over the hole.
I mounted the lens board on my Calumet CC-402 wide-field/short-monorail 4x5 inch view camera.

thanks for details on what you did, particularly needle size as I've been guessing then measuring. I will seek out a #15. Attached is one attempt that had problems with fogging/underexposure or both but I salvaged an interesting scan out of it or least feel it's headed where I hope to go with this technique. It started as a lark out of only having one lens at present for my Calumet and I thought why not try pinhole and it's become kind of a mystic to me. Jim

Pinhole board for 4x5 Calumet?

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