The Interchangable Pinhole Pinhole

[Stephanie Brim]

I'm nuts. So nuts, in fact, that I'm willing to take on this project. I'm still in the early planning stages, but there are a few things I need to know before I go about a trip to Hobby Lobby in Fort Dodge to get the stuff to create it. For the background information, Dead Link Removed.

What is the best material to make the actual pinholes out of? What can I reinforce said material with after the fact? I had planned to put the material between two sheets of heavy cardboard. Would covering the pinhole on both sides with a small piece of cut glass be a bad idea? On a different vein now, should I keep the original film wind knob from the Brownie or would you recommend fashioning a new one?

Those are all the questions I have for now. I'm starting to see the finished product in my head. I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with this. Oh, and I plan to just update this thread whenever I post anything new on the blog or have another question...that way I don't clutter up the forum.

 

[eddie gunks]

i make my pinholes out of aluminum cans and i sand the holes with 600 grit sand paper to make them thin and to sand off the bit of Al. that pushed out with the pin. if you needed 3 pinholes you could mountthem to a wheel inside and just turn it to the hole size for your given focal length. as for the glass hhhmmmm? not sure but i wold be thinking about flare and all kinds of other related difficulties associated with glass. up to you. i say no glass. if the wind knob works fine, use it.

as for your focal lengths, in my opinion some of te more interesting pinhole shots come from the ultra wide angles. i use a 25mm on th 4x5 pinhole and it produces very dramatic effects check out this shot http://www.f295.org/Pinholeforum/forum/Blah.pl?m-1139237642/s-0/highlight-+tree/#num0
so you may conside making a shorter focal length. also try and make your mask removable so you can still make MF stuff. MF pinholes are great!

have a great time and check out this site http://www.f295.org/Pinholeforum/forum/Blah.pl?
everyone is very helpful and supportive. you will love pinholing.

eddie

 

[Stephanie Brim]

Yeah...I'm changing focal length ideas. I think I'll do 45mm, 80mm, 115mm, and 150mm. Four will be more challenging, but not really that bad. And I like the wheel idea.

 

[John Bartley]

You could always vary the focal length by using a set of bellows from an old small enlarger - you wouldn't have the option of "optimum aperture" for every length, but it would be an easy adjustment.

cheers

 

[Jim Jones]

Rather than butcher a nice box Kodak, look for an inexpensive 120 film folding camera. The bellows on some of the older ones can be extended through a range of focal lengths. You can probably get down to about 50mm focal length before the bed gets in the way. If you can find an old camera store with a supply of the old filter adaptor rings popular decades ago, they would work well to hold interchangable pinholes. I have some in various sizes. Most are the slip-on type that slip onto the outside of a lens barrel. For pinhole use they can be epoxied in place of the lens. If you can determine the needed size, email me at jjones@greenhills.net, and I'll try to find one. No charge to an Iowan pinholer. I make pinholes out of brass shim stock, available in hardware, hobby, and perhaps auto supply stores. It seems to work cleaner than aluminum. There's no need to use glass on either or both sides of the pinhole.

 

[waynecrider]

I think you mentioned something in a previous thread about LF. You can check out this page for a multiple pinhole plate here: (there was a url link here which no longer exists) It's called a Apo II Pinhole/Zone Plate Shutter.

There's also plenty of other pinhole caps ands such to look at.

 

[Wade D]

I've also used brass shim stock to make pinholes. I use a very small drill bit in a pin vise and then deburr with crocus cloth. Then I blacken the pinhole with candle soot to eliminate flare. Works very well.

 

[k_jupiter]

I'm nuts. Would covering the pinhole on both sides with a small piece of cut glass be a bad idea?

Using glass on a pinhole camera will probably get you kicked out of the international pinhole society. Besides, it's not needed for anything and could induce flair.

tim in san jose

 

[Photo Engineer]

There is a company that makes calibrated pinholes for some type of electron microscope (IIRC). They come on small brass or stainless steel slides like microscope slides and are used by a lot of pinhole people in the US. They are not very expensive and last a long time.

A workshop instructor, name of Tom Miller, is an advocate of this. He did give me the name, but I don't have it now, nor do I recollect his e-mail. You might try a search or contact the Formulary for his address.

His work is very very good.

PE

 

[removed account4]

hi stephanie

i bought pinholes from a guy many years ago from a company called "minute aperture" ... they were cheep and work very well. they are laser drilled so you get a multiplyer number relative to f64 ( if you use a light meter ... ).

they seem to be the same quality as the ones sold by pinhole resource

john

 

[Donald Qualls]

One of the simple ways to make pinholes interchangeable is to mount them in plastic slide mounts (painted black, by preference), and make a mount on the camera into which the slide mount, er, slides...