Who has used ZeroImage2000 (6x6) for Pinhole ?

Hello,

I got inspired by Scott Speck's work at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41427422@N00/

and bought a Zero Image 2000 (6x6) pinhole wooden camera.

Now I struggling to find the right exposure.

I made many blunders the 1st time around. Was trying with the Ilford Delta 3200, although I loaded the film correctly, I slid the wooden back the opposite way. After winding the film to the position #1, I realized it but didn't want to waste the film, so didn't open the box. I think I didn't really understand what should be the focusing distance & exposure time. At f/138 (or focal length 25mm), I thought I can place it at whatever distance without caring - isn't the depth of field nearly infinite? Took 3 shots attached below - of my laptop near a window(light coming in from the right), standing in the washroom next to the sink and a bottle of water with the window far behind it. I did use a tripod but no shutter release mechanism.

I think 3200 would work fine with exposure time = 2 seconds but clearly it didn't. I was trying to use Pinhole Designer(a software) which tells you the exposure to use in the far right hand side column. It adjusts for reciprocity.

http://picasaweb.google.com/rchadda

My concern is apart from the lighting... the pictures aren't sharp, why is that ? I got it developed at a dumpy store, scanned the negative myself using a CanoScan Lide80 scanner at 1200dpi and hit convert to negative using an image editor. Understandably, there's grain too with 3200.

I am travelling to Europe in a week & thought I should collect some advice, so hopefully I can get better results before trying again. This time I'll try in the open Swiss Alp area with Ilford FP4 Plus (ISO125) or Velvia (ISO125).

Sorry to burden you with details. I'd love to hear if anyone has tips.

Or just tell me from your experience... if I use ISO 100 film:
For bright sunny landscape, exposure roughly 1-2 seconds?
For overcast landscape, exposure roughly 2-4 seconds?
For outdoor portrait, exposure roughly 2-4 seconds?
For indoor portrait (well lit room), exposure roughly 6-10 seconds?

Thanks,
Rajat
rchadda@gmail.com

I use a Zero2000 quite a bit.
Sharpness: There is no lens, so there is no focal distance. Sharpness is equal over the whole field but nowhere is it absolutely sharp. How sharp your image appears is dependent from the size of the pinhole. So one might assume that the smaller you make your pinhole the sharper the image gets. But not so because if your pinhole gets too small you will loose sharpness because of diffraction.

Exposure: I use mainly Fuji Neopan Acros in my little Zero because that film has a very good reciprocity behaviour. Up to two minutes there has to be no correction, from two minutes on I correct by half a stop. I do not know how Acros behaves at measured exposure times of more than 4 minutes, I read somewhere that up to 1000 seconds measured exposure time there has to be only half a stop correction. So when it comes to long exposure times this film is easily faster than all the higher rated films. So I measure light and use the exposure calculator at the back of the Zero to get to the time at f138 and then use this time (probably with some correction). With Acros I have very consistent results. All of my Zero images shown on this size and on www.f295.org are done with Acros.

Cheers
Ruediger

Did you keep your hand of the camera while exposing the film, maybe adding some movement there. Also I would only scan at the native resolution of the scanner, not the interpolation resolution

Rajat
These two shots were done with the ZeroImage 6x6 on Ilford FP4+ on a cloudy day, exposure was about 2 or 3 seconds. On a sunny day the exposure may have been too fast for this camera. I plan on using Ilford's Pan F film from now on.
I hope this helps.

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

gene

Get your exposure guide here: http://www.mrpinhole.com/exposure.php
There is a lot of great information on the rest of the site also.

Scott Speck has posted many of his images on F295, and along with the resulting discussion he has talked about some of his process.

He does some degree of post-processing. Using ultra-wide angle cameras, here's how he says he compensates for the exposure difference between center and edge:

"I really don't PP "up" the edges, but I PP "down" the center. The huge exposure latitude with b/w negative film makes it possible to overexpose the center and still have tons of detail in it, as you can see."

Explore the B/W pinhole gallery at F295 for more of Scott's images.

~Joe

Doesn't the Zero Image 2000 have an exposure calculator on the back? Mine does and although it is hard to read, it helps to get me where I want to go. Bill Barber