Would need advice about this camera

Laci Toth · Mar 22, 2020

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5x7-4x5-...182613?hash=item420afcd255:g:IlEAAOSw2S9c0Erc

I'd like to ask you guys about your opinion of this camera. I saw this piece of kit months ago but I was hesitating because I'm not sure if it's that easy to play with the focal length and the pinhole diameter to get a decent or sharp photo Or is it? So can I really use any diameter for any focal length and vice versa?
Also it can be a challenge/lot of experimenting to determine the angle of view as there are so many possibilities.

AgX · Mar 22, 2020

Yes, I find that finder in diopter style very weird.

DWThomas · Mar 22, 2020

My gut reaction is that it's a rather elegant bit of work that presents a lot of possibilities. It's for sure that major flexibility of "focal length" and rise and fall could present challenges for framing a composition. (Of course I consider that sort of problem just a "feature" of pinholery! ) That rear peep sight and pointer projecting above the front standard would take care of the centering -- maybe one could work out some rectangular frames from card or mat board and hold them up centered on the front pointer tip to get more precise when needed.

Coming with that multi-aperture pinhole shutter it strikes me as very reasonably priced, of course perhaps in the flesh it may be a little rickety to handle -- hard to tell "on the Interwebz."

narsuitus · Mar 22, 2020

Laci Toth said:
I was hesitating because I'm not sure if it's that easy to play with the focal length and the pinhole diameter to get a decent or sharp photo Or is it?

I love the design and features of this pinhole camera.

When I need a pinhole camera with similar features, I simply mount a pinhole on my 4x5 inch view camera. The advantage of my view camera is that I can also mount optical lenses on the body. I could not tell from the front of the camera if this pinhole camera also accepts optical lenses.

I like the inclusion of 9 pinholes. However, I have no idea how precise the pinholes are. Pinhole construction plays a very important role in obtaining sharp images.

Since I do most of my 4x5 inch pinhole work with a 0.3mm pinhole diameter at a film-to-pinhole distance of 50 to 65mm, the 100 to 140mm focal length range of this pinhole camera would not meet my needs. Your needs may be different.

removed account4 · Mar 22, 2020

looks kind of fun !
maybe you should ask the seller about the pinholes, if they are laser holes or how they are made ?
as long as they are laser holes I wouldn't worry about it.
looks like a fun way to have a pinhole camera !
just ask the seller if it isn't what you expect if he will allow you to return it no questions asked ..
you already get that warrantee through PayPal anyways, so it is pretty easy ..
you might also look into >>. http://www.pinholeedun.com/products-and-ordering/
he makes and sells laser holes & turrets and if you get a LF camera you can just mount the turret on
the camera. the design of the camera on eBay, looks like the seller took all the measurements and guesswork out of
knowing where to put the standard when you change holes.
have fun!
John

Laci Toth · Mar 22, 2020

narsuitus said:
I love the design and features of this pinhole camera.

When I need a pinhole camera with similar features, I simply mount a pinhole on my 4x5 inch view camera. The advantage of my view camera is that I can also mount optical lenses on the body. I could not tell from the front of the camera if this pinhole camera also accepts optical lenses.

I like the inclusion of 9 pinholes. However, I have no idea how precise the pinholes are. Pinhole construction plays a very important role in obtaining sharp images.

Since I do most of my 4x5 inch pinhole work with a 0.3mm pinhole diameter at a film-to-pinhole distance of 50 to 65mm, the 100 to 140mm focal length range of this pinhole camera would not meet my needs. Your needs may be different.

I guess it’s laser drilled as he even sells them separately but I ask him just to be sure.
Somehow I thought that in case of pinhole cameras certain diameter needs certain focal length otherwise it won’t work.

awty · Mar 22, 2020

Camera looks pretty nifty.
I have one of his multi holed shutters and it is solid in construction and works fine. Very handy to have a cable release shutter. I also have used his individual brass holes, they too work fine.

Laci Toth · Mar 22, 2020

jnantz said:
looks kind of fun !
maybe you should ask the seller about the pinholes, if they are laser holes or how they are made ?
as long as they are laser holes I wouldn't worry about it.
looks like a fun way to have a pinhole camera !
just ask the seller if it isn't what you expect if he will allow you to return it no questions asked ..
you already get that warrantee through PayPal anyways, so it is pretty easy ..
you might also look into >>. http://www.pinholeedun.com/products-and-ordering/
he makes and sells laser holes & turrets and if you get a LF camera you can just mount the turret on
the camera. the design of the camera on eBay, looks like the seller took all the measurements and guesswork out of
knowing where to put the standard when you change holes.
have fun!
John

Thanks for the link John!
He’s in to send the item back in case I’m not satisfied.
The holes probably laser holes on brass. Brass is for sure, the laser is not but will ask him but I think there’s no reason to think it’s not. I’ve a pinhole which is a gorgeous looking piece of kit and takes awesome photos but leaks here and there due to warpage and it was a dirt cheap camera and has laser drilled holes.
My concern is the framing with this design. Somehow I need to measure the degree to know the angle.

Laci Toth · Mar 22, 2020

awty said:
Camera looks pretty nifty.
I have one of his multi holed shutters and it is solid in construction and works fine. Very handy to have a cable release shutter. I also have used his individual brass holes, they too work fine.

Oh great, good to hear that! Could you recommend me a good idea how to compose with this camera? I’ve a obscura but it’s a box so it’s pretty easy, I just drew an invisible line from the centre to the edges and that’s it, but how will I do this with this design?

John Koehrer · Mar 22, 2020

jnantz said:
looks kind of fun !
maybe you should ask the seller about the pinholes, if they are laser holes or how they are made ?
as long as they are laser holes I wouldn't worry about it.
looks like a fun way to have a pinhole camera !
just ask the seller if it isn't what you expect if he will allow you to return it no questions asked ..
you already get that warrantee through PayPal anyways, so it is pretty easy ..
you might also look into >>. http://www.pinholeedun.com/products-and-ordering/
he makes and sells laser holes & turrets and if you get a LF camera you can just mount the turret on
the camera. the design of the camera on eBay, looks like the seller took all the measurements and guesswork out of
knowing where to put the standard when you change holes.
have fun!
John

What he said^^^^^ It looks pretty Rube Goldbergish to me but then some things I've made don't come anywhere
close to looking this good. Really like the adjustment rods on it.
Neither here nor there, it looks like the wood is stained but not varnished, it won't have any effect on operation
but it would be prettier with varnish. Picky, picky, picky I know.

DWThomas · Mar 22, 2020

Laci Toth said:
Somehow I need to measure the degree to know the angle.

You could use proportion and not actually need the angular measure. Measure the frame mask width and height, measure the pinhole plate to film distance. Then just scale up the numbers for pinhole to subject dimensions. Actually, as a first approximation for a "wireframe" viewfinder, placing a rectangular cutout of dimensions equal to the frame mask out at the front and sighting through it via that peephole sight at the back would likely put you in the ballpark.
(And yes, I would probably torment myself with some trig, but one can over think this stuff sometimes. )

Donald Qualls · Mar 22, 2020

Laci Toth said:
Somehow I thought that in case of pinhole cameras certain diameter needs certain focal length otherwise it won’t work.

This is mostly incorrect.

Diffraction gives an optimum resolution for any focal length at a particular size (the exact formula is on the web somewhere, but I haven't made pinhole cameras in more than a decade), but anything that will give an exposure you can live with (or live through) will produce images of some sort. If the hole is really, really too small, you'll get untenable exposure times (especially with very slow materials like print paper to be processed by reversal or Harman Direct Positive paper). If it's way too big, you'll get super-blurry images (but you can get an image of sorts with a folding camera set to f/32 and the glass removed from the shutter). Somewhere in between, there's an optimum that, with fairly short focal lengths, can produce negatives that look sharp even with some enlargement, and with longer projection on larger formats produces negatives that, when contact printed, you have to look at quite hard to tell they're pinhole images.

awty · Mar 22, 2020

Laci Toth said:
Oh great, good to hear that! Could you recommend me a good idea how to compose with this camera? I’ve a obscura but it’s a box so it’s pretty easy, I just drew an invisible line from the centre to the edges and that’s it, but how will I do this with this design?

I use Mr pinhole calculator to work out angle of view, focal length, coverage and hole size. https://www.mrpinhole.com/wiz.php
I often use view finder app and punch in angle of view with the appropriate aspect ratio https://www.mrpinhole.com/wiz.php

While the multiple pinhole with shutter is a good item, the camera itself will be quite limiting unless you can get it to do a shorter focal length than 100mm. You will find most of your angles of view will be on the narrow side to get good coverage, or heavily vignetted if you want wide. That might not bother you, some people like the vignetting.

Laci Toth · Mar 23, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
This is mostly incorrect.

Diffraction gives an optimum resolution for any focal length at a particular size (the exact formula is on the web somewhere, but I haven't made pinhole cameras in more than a decade), but anything that will give an exposure you can live with (or live through) will produce images of some sort. If the hole is really, really too small, you'll get untenable exposure times (especially with very slow materials like print paper to be processed by reversal or Harman Direct Positive paper). If it's way too big, you'll get super-blurry images (but you can get an image of sorts with a folding camera set to f/32 and the glass removed from the shutter). Somewhere in between, there's an optimum that, with fairly short focal lengths, can produce negatives that look sharp even with some enlargement, and with longer projection on larger formats produces negatives that, when contact printed, you have to look at quite hard to tell they're pinhole images.

Thank for your thoughts!
Yes, that’s how I mean when I said ‘it won’t work’.
So you just can’t use any pinhole size to any focal length if the aim is to get a classic sharp photo. Probably with this camera the maker knows what he does I was just wondering if I can freely use any diameter with any focal length and it will produce a great photo.

Laci Toth · Mar 23, 2020

awty said:
I use Mr pinhole calculator to work out angle of view, focal length, coverage and hole size. https://www.mrpinhole.com/wiz.php
I often use view finder app and punch in angle of view with the appropriate aspect ratio https://www.mrpinhole.com/wiz.php

While the multiple pinhole with shutter is a good item, the camera itself will be quite limiting unless you can get it to do a shorter focal length than 100mm. You will find most of your angles of view will be on the narrow side to get good coverage, or heavily vignetted if you want wide. That might not bother you, some people like the vignetting.

Hmm. I thought that any focal length will cover the entire size of the negative. As I only do contact print I’d like if I could get a good coverage.
Thanks for the links!

AgX · Mar 23, 2020

Laci Toth said:
Somehow I thought that in case of pinhole cameras certain diameter needs certain focal length otherwise it won’t work.

There are optimum extention/diameter ratios. You find these in textbooks on photographic optics, but of course within the pinhole community there are dogmatic discussions on these.

DWThomas · Mar 23, 2020

Laci Toth said:
Hmm. I thought that any focal length will cover the entire size of the negative. As I only do contact print I’d like if I could get a good coverage.

This is pretty much true for an "ideal" pinhole. I have no first hand knowledge of that shutter assembly, but sometimes for a very wide angle various components of the shutter or pinhole mount can interfere with the light rays. A pinhole is not like one of those multi-element lenses that can sort of funnel the light in and through a deep stack of glass parts. Even the thickness of the pinhole plate itself plays a role in cutting off rays off-axis. The actual sharpness vs diameter bit I'm sure is a relatively broad curve where you can be off a bit from the absolute optimum (a somewhat hazy term in itself!) and still get reasonable results.

I have home built cameras that have upwards of 100º diagonal angle of view. Yes, there is some light fall-off but, decent results. I have found Mr. Pinhole to be what I consider pessimistic on that coverage issue. I normally use Pinhole Designer which doesn't pass judgement on results, but the downside is it's a program that installs on Windows systems and hasn't been updated in eons. What's good about Mr. Pinhole is that it runs via scripting in the web browser so it can work on many platforms. What I don't like is that there are some assumptions to be made for certain constants used in the equations, and last I looked, Mr. Pinhole offers not a hint of what it's using.

So it depends a lot on your goals -- I mean we regularly see work posted on these forums by people reversing the meniscus lens in their Brownie Hawkeyes and such!

Arthurwg · Mar 23, 2020

Laci Toth said:
I guess it’s laser drilled as he even sells them separately but I ask him just to be sure.
Somehow I thought that in case of pinhole cameras certain diameter needs certain focal length otherwise it won’t work.

Yes, you need to find the correct pinhole diameter that corresponds to the FL you will be using. I would assume that the FL would be marked on the bellows extension, and that a pinhole diameter would be specified for that FL.

Laci Toth · Mar 23, 2020

Arthurwg said:
Yes, you need to find the correct pinhole diameter that corresponds to the FL you will be using. I would assume that the FL would be marked on the bellows extension, and that a pinhole diameter would be specified for that FL.

No it’s not. It’s totally up to the user which diameter is used for the focal lengths and vice versa.
So it seems to me that it’s rather an experimental camera or gives a lot of possibilities to experiment. Might be even too many for me.

DWThomas · Mar 23, 2020

Laci Toth said:
Might be even too many for me.

Well now, you just have to take a few deep breaths and make a handy chart or three, approaching it one step at a time.

You could print a scale on index stock with the minimum and maximum focal lengths and include two or three intermediate distances, all laid out such that you use it like a ruler to measure from roughly the front of the film holder to the plane of the pinhole. The measurement doesn't need super precision. For all of those distance marks, and inputting the size of your film, run the numbers through Pinhole Designer or Mr. Pinhole and see what the "optimum" pinhole size is for each distance. That would probably be quite sufficient, but you could interpolate by guess to refine that if an in-between situation arose "in the field."

I have Micro$oft Publisher for other reasons, which is my goto when I need fairly accurate layouts, but I'm suspecting you could use a spreadsheet and adjust the column widths to simultaneously create a scale and tables. I can envision a sort of pocket sized card with a scale along the long edge and a table with the pinhole size and vertically below that a series of exposure times adjusted for the tiny apertures relative to what you can meter. When I do that sort of thing, I usually just use the clear packaging tape that's available around here to effectively laminate the card (both sides) to protect it a bit from weather and handling.

There are no third order differential equations needed!

John Koehrer · Mar 23, 2020

In the description it mentions that the exposure and f stop scales are included so mark the optimum for each fl you want
and mark it like the examples, that's pretty quick and easy to track the results as you go along.

Laci Toth · Mar 23, 2020

DWThomas said:
Well now, you just have to take a few deep breaths and make a handy chart or three, approaching it one step at a time.

You could print a scale on index stock with the minimum and maximum focal lengths and include two or three intermediate distances, all laid out such that you use it like a ruler to measure from roughly the front of the film holder to the plane of the pinhole. The measurement doesn't need super precision. For all of those distance marks, and inputting the size of your film, run the numbers through Pinhole Designer or Mr. Pinhole and see what the "optimum" pinhole size is for each distance. That would probably be quite sufficient, but you could interpolate by guess to refine that if an in-between situation arose "in the field."

I have Micro$oft Publisher for other reasons, which is my goto when I need fairly accurate layouts, but I'm suspecting you could use a spreadsheet and adjust the column widths to simultaneously create a scale and tables. I can envision a sort of pocket sized card with a scale along the long edge and a table with the pinhole size and vertically below that a series of exposure times adjusted for the tiny apertures relative to what you can meter. When I do that sort of thing, I usually just use the clear packaging tape that's available around here to effectively laminate the card (both sides) to protect it a bit from weather and handling.

There are no third order differential equations needed!

Alright, this seems a great idea! Thanks!

awty · Mar 23, 2020

I wonder if you could get any swing or tilt, that would be interesting.

Donald Qualls · Mar 23, 2020

awty said:
I wonder if you could get any swing or tilt, that would be interesting.

I wouldn't expect swing or tilt to have any effect on a pinhole, other than if you swing/tilt far enough that the off-axis limits (due to pinhole material thickness) come into play. Otherwise, swings and tilts change the relationship between the focal plane of the lens, the in-focus plane in the world, and the film plane. Since pinholes have no focal plane, there's nothing happening here. Now, shift and rise will have the same effects on perspective they'd have with a standard view camera -- front rise will let you shoot upward without keystoning, etc. -- as long as you don't get into that off-axis self-vignetting region (or get the bellows into the light path or something of the sort).

Deleted member 88956 · Mar 23, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
This is mostly incorrect.

Diffraction gives an optimum resolution for any focal length at a particular size (the exact formula is on the web somewhere, but I haven't made pinhole cameras in more than a decade), but anything that will give an exposure you can live with (or live through) will produce images of some sort. If the hole is really, really too small, you'll get untenable exposure times (especially with very slow materials like print paper to be processed by reversal or Harman Direct Positive paper). If it's way too big, you'll get super-blurry images (but you can get an image of sorts with a folding camera set to f/32 and the glass removed from the shutter). Somewhere in between, there's an optimum that, with fairly short focal lengths, can produce negatives that look sharp even with some enlargement, and with longer projection on larger formats produces negatives that, when contact printed, you have to look at quite hard to tell they're pinhole images.

I have no idea what you just said. Somehow started saying that hole size has no relation to focal length, than said if hole is too small exposure gets too long and if too large images get blurry.
In BOTH cases images get blurry, first case (too small) because of diffraction, in second when hole is too large, projection on film plane is too wide BECAUSE it is too close to film plane for its size and each point overlaps adjacent one causing out of focus effect.

Hole sizes fall within certain min/max limits, but are directly governed by BOTH focal length and diffraction.

Would need advice about this camera

Deleted member 88956

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