I have laser drilled bodycap pinhole. It produces predictably fuzzy
images and isn't much fun to use. Making your own is much more fun.
Someone mentioned brass shim material, you could also get similar
material at an arts and crafts shop. As for the hole, I followed
someone's recommendation years ago (I believe it was from this list, or
maybe the pinhole list I used to belong to) and used acupuncture
needles. Rotate the pin tip on the metal until it just penetrates (onto
a very hard surface is a good idea), turn the material out and repeat
from the other side.
I always liked to use Altoid tins, but found my best camera was a large
round Nivea facial cream tin which produced good 2"x2" images. Throw a
few strips of 120 in a darkbag and you have an afternoon of fun!
On 2/7/11 6:43 PM, droberts@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
There are details regarding a viable pin hole which don't seem to have
been mentioned. I am not an expert but know that the thinner the
material you make the pin hole in the better the result because you
cut down diffraction. The more round and clean edged the hole the
better the result. And for different focal lengths and proper
focusing you have to match the distance from the imaging plane and the
size of the pin hole. There is much material available online and in
books about the subject. Just making a hole and slapping it on a
camera seldom results in a good quality image.
Don
On Mon, 07 Feb 2011 08:07:10 -0700, mark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Well I have a drill press and tools so what I was planning to do is
drill the hole directly into the body cap, but don't know if I can
find a bit that small after hearing the discussions. Taking it into
the body cap would give a good clean hole that wouldn't tear up every
time you threw it into a bag like aluminum foil would. Anything paper,
ect would be destroyed the first time you tossed it in the camera bag.
I was hoping for something durable enough that it could bounce around,
be abused by banging into other stuff in a camera bag, and still be
totally functional.
The solid material being plastic I might be able to heat a needle and
melt a hole through it. Drilling would give the cleanest hole and I
suspect that would be key. The thickness of the material also could
and likely would be an issue I didn't think about.
Rather than aluminum foil, if I glued some cloth over a bigger hole,
fiberglassed over it, painted it flat black, anyone see any problems.
Would be thicker than foil, but likely much much stronger. It would
also be a pain to redo if damaged. Oh well
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: making a pinhole
From: Tim Corio
Date: Mon, February 07, 2011 8:17 am
To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students
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 [3] 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.)
>
Links:
------
[1] mailto:tcorio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[2] mailto:photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[3] mailto:mark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
