Trying to Figure Pinhole Out

[tryals15]

One of my many summer projects (teacher) is to figure out how to use and teach pinhole photography at my school next year. As such I built a Populist pinhole camera today to see if I could make it work. I will post pics of the camera itself in a bit, but below are the four images I got today that were remotely salvageable. This was an old (not sure how old) refridgerated, roll of AGFA 200 processed down the road at Walgreens. (Doing my own developing also on the list for the summer).

The first image is my direct scan of the negative (Epson V500). The second image is a desaturation convert to B/W. The last is one or more curves manipulations in CS3 to extract as much information as possible from the negative.

The question is what am I doing wrong? Thanks in advance!

 

[AlbertZeroK]

My guess would be a light leak. Not sure the type of camera you are using, would love to see photos. I do enjoy pinhole photography myself

 

[ME Super]

Yeah that looks like a light leak. I built a populist pinhole (35mm) from a 24 pack of pepsi and went a little overboard with the black tape to make sure I had it light tight. Then rubber banded the thing together so it wouldn't accidentally come apart with the film in it.

 

[pinholeboy]

That would be my guess too, a light leak. The contrast is so low. Use a more trusted roll of film to eliminate that as a possible cause of the low contrast.
Would love to see photos of your camera as well!

 

[tryals15]

Here is the camera. I printed the template on a manilla folder with a laser printer, for some reason the toner got laid down kinda splotchy... I guess I need to tape over the inside of the back...

 

[tryals15]

Well, I taped everything more, and that seems to have mostly done the trick...

I guess the tension from the film is skewing the internal baffles, or whatever they are called, causing the slanted frames...

ETA: They were all in color, but most of them were REALLY blue, hence a B/W conversion with a blue filter...

 

[ced]

tryals15 what size is the pinhole? Try making it smaller and make sure it is very clean on as thin a metal (brass shimming the best!?)as possible and see if the depth and sharpness may improve clean hole may also help against flare.

 

[summicron1]

the inside of that camera needs to be matt flat black, completely -- otherwise you will get light from the pinhole reflecting off the film and around inside the camera, also off the sides and onto the film.

this cannot be stressed too much -- go buy some of the flattest black matt paint you can find at the car part store -- something that makes things disappear, and spray the inside with that, first covering the pinhole of course. I've done this with Holgas and my Russian stereo camera and it does wonders ...