I played with this a few years ago using my Canon 5D. I cut a large hole in a body cap and glued a paper towel tube (painted black on the inside) to that. Glued a cardboard disk to the end with a small (quarter inch) hole. I painted the whole outside black in several layers to fill in a few small light leaks. Over the hole in the end of the tube I taped a piece of aluminum foil. In that foil I poked a small hole using a pin. This gave pretty good results. I could not get a clean hole. Small defects in the hole scattered light reducing contrast. Body caps are cheap on eBay and the rest of the material is nearly free. You can experiment a lot for little cost. Tim On Sun, 2011-02-06 at 21:43 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > On 2011-02-06 16:20, mark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > > Came up with an idea. Toyed with the idea of trying some pinhole > > photography but something always seems to get in the way. Came up with > > an idea to turn a regular film/digital camera into a pinhole using a > > body cap. Should work on any 35mm digital ect that would accept that > > kind of cap, and an extra cap in the bag weighs next to nothing and no > > bulk or extra stuff to lug around. > > Would you be shocked to learn they're commercially available? I have > one for my Nikon bodies. I've done a tiny bit with it on digital; I > should try it on the D700, which should be a bit better than the DX > cameras; a bit. > > > Now I suspect the smaller the hole the better as far as sharpness, but > > is there a group of sizes that I should try? How much of a difference > > in hole size should I allow. Granted a body cap isn't going to alter > > the GDP, but its not like getting another piece of cardboard either. Id > > be interested to hear thoughts and ideas of those with pinhole > > experience. > > For sharpness, there's an optimal hole size (depends on distance from > sensor), and either bigger or smaller loses you resolution. For > 35mm-size cameras, going for sharpness is a mugs game, though; you don't > get sharp pinhole photography from that small a neg. > > (Lots of easy online resources on hold size.) >
