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DIY 10×8 pinhole camera
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a few ekes ago i made this pinhole camera out of some old 10×8 ilford boxes, some black gaffer tape, black card, and the pinhole out of the bottom of a tin can. the camera took about 3 hours to make. the bellows serve no real purpose apart from that they were entertaining to make and i wanted to try it out.
I got the instructions on http://www.instructables.com/id/8X10-foldable-pinhole-camera/
EDIT forgot to add this imagethere was quite a bit of trial and error involved with the pinhole – i made the first with a drink can and the tiniest tip of a needle hole, i also was trying to get exposures on paper under artificial lighting… forgetting of course that paper is not sensitive to red so would take ages….
the first image took 5 hours to expose, and even then i had to solarise it in order to pull out the latent image or there would have been not much there…
what i wanted was to be able to shoot indoors and capture some movement and presence of people/animals at times.
studio, 5hrs aperture 1
the next one was much better, hole about 1.6mm in diameter and sanded smooth. takes about 6-10 mins in daylight to expose a 10×8 sheet of paper, focal length about 120mm.
first image in daylight, 10mins aperture 2. on chair looking at darkroom (distant shed) and workshop. this was also the first image ever to be developed in my darkroom. really just 3 basins on the floor with a safelight at the time…
in house, 6mins
kitten, 6mins
workshop, 10mins
the trade off with the larger hole is that the focus is softer, but i don’t really mind. i like the flaws- scratches finger prints etc.
these have all been scanned and reversed as (in my opinion anyway) contacts through paper aren’t great. I’m going to do some tests on 5×4 film to get exposure times with the smaller hole before investing in some 10×8 film…
any thoughts/comments appreciated.
Isabella,
Congratulations on creating such great images with such basic ingredients !
I think the pictures you took have such great ‘soul’. Please keep them coming.
Regards,
George.thanks very much george!
i really enjoyed doing them, it feels quite amazing making images with nothing but a box! very freeing from the usual technical stuff.
I’ve calculated the aperture and projected exposure times for film (ilford fp4+) so i hope to give that a go tomorrow!
fair play to you Isabella – very creative
and nice results.well done.
any more samples?
Yea sure maybe the bellows serves no real purpose but doesn’t it look so cool 8)
Thats the job :). I have a couple of shims at home for a pinhole.
This might get me motivated to use them :).Well done. Am looking forwards to seeing more
thanks all!
working on some more at the moment, trusted the maths and did 6 exposures on 5×4 as thats what filled the tank I’m using and then under developed them by accident. there is a whole image in each one if you look through just right and through some trick of the light they appear positive rather than negative. don’t have much hope of pulling prints out without bleach and re-stain though. anyone any experience of this?
Hi Isabella,
You could try selenium toning the negatives to increase the contrast as I’d imagine they’re pretty flat. A strong dilution of say 1:5 for around ten minutes should help.
Peter
brilliant! thanks peter, as soon as the bank balance sorts itself out after the christmas ill give that a go!
EDIT forgot to add this image
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