Toy store gift to nephew, got myself a pinhole =D

Helinophoto · Dec 10, 2016

Still need to look for that gift to my nephew though ^^

Anyone tried this?

Cool that they have this in toy-stores =D ($15)

kier · Dec 10, 2016

Cool! That company makes good products - I've bought some of their science kits for my kiddo, but haven't seen the pinhole kit. I'm interested to see how it turns out!

Helinophoto · Dec 12, 2016

Hehe, yes I will keep you posted when I got this up and running ^^

Need to assemble it, then make the hole, calculate a bit and then test it (whenever the light is strong enough, dark these days).

Helinophoto · Dec 22, 2016

kier said:
Cool! That company makes good products - I've bought some of their science kits for my kiddo, but haven't seen the pinhole kit. I'm interested to see how it turns out!

Hey

I've messed around a bit with this camera now, I wrote a little review here:
https://helino-photo.blogspot.com/2016/12/4m-pinhole-fun-project-experiences-and.html

Was fun, but it needs some hacking to perform better

kier · Dec 24, 2016

Interesting - thanks for writing that up. I agree with your assessment though - it should really come out better. I gotta believe that yours worked as well as it did because you came to it with some pinhole experience. I pity the fool who tries this out without that background - seems like it would fail or at least turn the person off from pinhole.

Agulliver · Mar 26, 2017

I have one of those...I've only managed to take one decent photo with it after putting three films through it. I was given it for Christmas back in 2007.

However I think my problem is that my pin holes are not small enough. I also got those circular type exposures that didn't cover the frame entirely. But horribly blurred apart from the last couple of photos I took with a smaller hole. More experimentation needed. The product itself seems well manufactured...simple but functional.

Helinophoto · Mar 27, 2017

Yes, my initial tests were pretty bad, then I made a better (smaller) hole and the shots on the blog-entry shows much sharper shots.

The round and small covering is due to the placement of the pinhole and shutter-mechanism. The pinhole itself sits in front of the body, then the light has to pass trough the shutter-mechanism and the body, both those holes are imo too small and cause loss of negative-coverage.

I haven't tried to drill those holes bigger, but I would believe it would improve the situation a lot.

Agulliver · Jun 25, 2018

Quick update, I shot a roll over the weekend with the smallest hole I could make using a pin, estimated 0.25mm and I got some reasonable shots out in Gunnersbury Park and at train stations. Not razor sharp by any means but decent images. now the problem seems to be some minor light reflections within the camera, probably from the aluminium foil used to make the pinhole. But for what it cost, as an exercise in proving that pinhole photography works....it's quite good. I agree a little hacking could make a better camera. Given it's aimed at kids, actually the fact that it's very simple and can yield decent results is great.

Grandpa Ron · Sep 8, 2018

I shot a roll with one of these and it is out for processing. It was a steep learning curve.
It took a while but I managed to make a .7 mm ph. The camera focal length is 48 mm so the f calculates to f 68, not really all that small. Also without a tripod mount, I had to use double backed sticky tape to hold in in place. The view finder is a very rough estimate and my exposures were a rough guess and we will see how they come out.

What it did do was peek my interest in photography as fall is approaching, so I have converted an old 35 mm SLR to pinhole but more importantly I have acquired a light meter to reduce the exposure guess work.

Worse yet it opened my Pandora's box on interest in B&W photography, so it looks like I have my "winter project" selected.
Good Luck

Jim Jones · Sep 8, 2018

Grandpa -- Based on www.pinhole.cz/en/pinholedesigner and experience I recommend a pinhole about .25mm. .002" brass shim stock is one of the best materials for making one. Many use aluminum cans. These can be blackened fairly well with a felt tip marker.

Toy store gift to nephew, got myself a pinhole =D

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