Pinhole body cap.

awty · Sep 29, 2016

Hi picked up a pinhole body cap from ebay to have a play.
Its 0.3mm hole. Was suited for Nikon DSLR, so I packed it out a little to better suit 35mm. Focal length is around 50mm, which makes it around f170.
FP4 set at 80 ISO. D-76 develop, scan.
Anyhow it seems to work.

View attachment 164389

bryans_tx · Sep 29, 2016

Like the dead tree image.

Darn good looking camera

onemississipp · Sep 29, 2016

Very nice camera and results

RalphLambrecht · Sep 29, 2016

awty said:
Hi picked up a pinhole body cap from ebay to have a play.
Its 0.3mm hole. Was suited for Nikon DSLR, so I packed it out a little to better suit 35mm. Focal length is around 50mm, which makes it around f170.
FP4 set at 80 ISO. D-76 develop, scan.
Anyhow it seems to work.

View attachment 164386 View attachment 164387 View attachment 164388 View attachment 164389 View attachment 164390 View attachment 164391

I use one of those myself.Mine has a 0.35mm hole made by a #15.

awty · Sep 29, 2016

Yes the f2 is a great camera, needed something a little more compact and portable than my Mamiya z67.

I was surprised by the results.....that I didnt completely stuff it up.
Was using a Sekonic light meter and a chart to get the shutter speed (flashmate only goes to 96). The vice was 8 mins, the 1st jetty was about 12 secs.....and a very sturdy tripod.

Sirius Glass · Sep 29, 2016

I have a similar pin hole body cap that I use on my Nikon N75 and F100. It works well.

awty · Sep 29, 2016

What focal length and size hole are you using?

I was using this calculator to get the best focal length with the sized hole. http://www.mrpinhole.com/calcpinh.php

I could adapt one for my Mamiya but I would have to drill out the hole to about 0.45mm.

DWThomas · Sep 29, 2016

An elegant job and some quite respectable results. I made a body cap pinhole for my Bronica SQ-A, but that had the added complexity of a shutter, since the SQ series has the shutter in the lenses. It works!

I like the tree, and the pipe clamp catches my eye for Olde Rust.

Terry Breedlove · Sep 29, 2016

I have one for my Nikon and one for my Mamiya RB 67. I should find them and give them away since I never use them anymore

awty · Sep 29, 2016

The pipe vise using 50mm nikkor lens at f16 for comparison.

The pin hole is slightly wider around 40mm I reckon.

Pinhole has its uses, just got to work out what.

bryans_tx · Sep 30, 2016

"so I packed it out a little to better suit 35mm" May I ask, what did you do exactly ? thanks.

awty · Sep 30, 2016

bryans_tx said:
"so I packed it out a little to better suit 35mm" May I ask, what did you do exactly ? thanks.

The nikon camera is 46mm from the mounting face to the film. Going by the calculator it should be around 50mm for that sized hole. So I just used a rubber washer I had to get it closer. Havent experimented, but seems to work. Not sure if there is any difference.

bryans_tx · Sep 30, 2016

Thank you!

onemississipp · Oct 1, 2016

awty said:
The pipe vise using 50mm nikkor lens at f16 for comparison.

The pin hole is slightly wider around 40mm I reckon.

Pinhole has its uses, just got to work out what.

View attachment 164462

Paul,
I prefer the pinhole picture of the vise.

awty · Oct 2, 2016

I moved the pinhole to inside the body cap, missing the mirror, to round 40mm focal length to give a wider image.

A long exposure is one way of removing people from a shot.

ciniframe · Oct 2, 2016

For some reason I like the 40mm results better. I know pinhole is not supposed to be sharp but most 35mm results I find a little too soft. About 4X5 is where I've started with pinhole, with a .3 mm pinhole at 65mm for a 90 degree angle or move it out to 100 mm if you want a more narrow angle of view.

DWThomas · Oct 2, 2016

"A long exposure is one way of removing people from a shot."

That's for sure -- one of my first Worldwide Pinhole Day outings included a shot from an elevation looking across a four lane expressway that is virtually never ever devoid of cars -- in the mid-afternoon 15 second exposure it looks empty and abandoned!

Along those lines I did have one interesting anomaly, a shot taken from along a local multi-use trail on a former railroad right-of-way. There was a strange bit of phantom something or other in one small area on the negative. Initially I feared some sloppy film handling on my part, but after thinking back a bit, I remembered someone came by on a bicycle while the shutter was open. There must have been some really intense reflection of the direct sun off a polished pedal crank arm or the like that actually recorded slightly. Pretty strange.

ced · Oct 2, 2016

Sorry for the external link but it may be of interest as this is body-cap pinhole related.
An image one of the few I've made with my M9.
http://www.ipernity.com/doc/987971/35003091

Chan Tran · Oct 2, 2016

If you mount the cap on the bellow would it become a zoom?

ced · Oct 2, 2016

I think you would have cutoff issues on a 35mm camera as there is a certain focal length to be respected on a large format this is another story...

DWThomas · Oct 2, 2016

Chan Tran said:
If you mount the cap on the bellow would it become a zoom?

Well sort of ... It would depend on whether the clear opening of the lens mount is large enough to expose the whole film frame as the pinhole to film distance increases, and also the optimum pinhole size wants to be different for different distances. The "curve" for the latter function is not a very sharp peak, so I expect it would work reasonably well over a modest range.

I have done the large format equivalent with a 4x5 press camera and a homemade lensboard with pinhole and flap shutter.

awty · Oct 2, 2016

I was wondering how people manage to get sharper photos.

I eventually intend to make my own pinhole camera, just trying to get a feel for it, I learn better that way. I will look into 4x5.

ced said:
Sorry for the external link but it may be of interest as this is body-cap pinhole related.
An image one of the few I've made with my M9.
http://www.ipernity.com/doc/987971/35003091

Nice photo.
I think colour works great in pinhole.

DWThomas · Oct 2, 2016

awty said:
[ . . . ]
I eventually intend to make my own pinhole camera, just trying to get a feel for it, I learn better that way. I will look into 4x5.
[ . . . ]

I have a fair amount of stuff about my lensless photography, at least in the 21st century, online at PBase. That might offer some ideas. Hehe, a while back I bought an EOS body cap with intent of trying digi-pinhole, I was curious whether the apparent softness in the images I see from small formats on the WPPD site is a fact of physics or just bad craftsmanship. It's been laying here about 3 or 4 years now -- I guess my inner self either doesn't see it as a priority -- or is afraid to find out! )

Jim Jones · Oct 2, 2016

awty said:
I was wondering how people manage to get sharper photos. . . .

Carefully choosing and fabricating (or buying) the optimum pinhole for the desired focal length helps. The amount of blur in an ideally sized pinhole is proportional to the pinhole diameter. The shorter the focal length, the smaller the hole and the less the blur. Thus wide angle pinhole cameras tend to yield sharper images. The most significant improvement in sharpness comes from using large film.

awty · Oct 2, 2016

DWThomas said:
I have a fair amount of stuff about my lensless photography, at least in the 21st century, online at PBase. That might offer some ideas.

Thanks.
They are very nice cameras.
I like hand made stuff. I built my hifi systems myself (speakers/amplifiers/record players etc..). Camera looks like a nice new challenge.....but I have a lot to learn first.

Pinhole body cap.

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