Pinole lens-cap (actually body cap) to convert an SLR/ DSLR for pinhole photography!

[Gary Ayala]

Asher, you have too much time on your hands ... okay, joking ... I've been thinking of drilling a hole into the camera cap on the 5D, just to see what I get. I know, not a novel idea ... but new for moi.

Gary

[Jack_Flesher]

Gary:

The cap itself is not thin enough for a good pinhole. Better to drill a bigger hole in the cap, tape a piece of thick foil to the underside, then stick a pin through the foil...

Cheers,

[Gary Ayala]

Originally Posted by Jack_Flesher

Gary:

The cap itself is not thin enough for a good pinhole. Better to drill a bigger hole in the cap, tape a piece of thick foil to the underside, then stick a pin through the foil...

Cheers,

Thanks Jack ... that is what I'll do. On the 5D, will is a pinhole in the body cap be of sufficient distance to fully cover the sensor, or do I have to extend the pinhole out?

Gary

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Gary,

Here's a picture taken with a Leica M8 pinholed cap. It was posted here previously.

"My friend has perhaps a first.

Steve Teiltebaum invited me to his place to mess around with the M8 files at the end of last year. To my surprise he came out with an inexpensive pinhole body cap which in one twist converted his very expensive M8 long awaited Leica M8 into a unique pinhole camera.

Here's one of his first shots"




Asher

[Jack_Flesher]

Originally Posted by Gary Ayala

Thanks Jack ... that is what I'll do. On the 5D, will is a pinhole in the body cap be of sufficient distance to fully cover the sensor, or do I have to extend the pinhole out?

Gary

A pinhole has infinite coverage, so yes, the cap distance is fine. HOWEVER the optimal aperture is critical for good sharpness, and that is a function of both distance to the sensor and diameter of the hole. Between f180 and f360 is usually the pinhole sweet-spot, and the formula for aperture is (focal distance)/(pinhole diameter). The cap on your 5D is about 50mm from the sensor, so the ideal pinhole diameter will be about 0.25mm (f200), or about .01 inches ---- IOW a *really* small hole

[Asher Kelman]

Gary,



The ready made pinhole body caps are laser drilled in foil. They sell for about $33 plus shipping from one particular MFR, Lenox Laser.

One can make the pinhole by a pin through aluminum or brass foil or else buy it in a body cap for Nikon, Canon or other camera with removable lens. Mark Uliasz finishes images off in photoshop here and the pics are quite pretty.


Originally Published in DigitalniFoto Magazine, by Dennison Bertram

Here's a way of keeping dust out of you lens cap pinhole:

Here's a fun instructional video Digital Pinhole Photography. This is just a decently nerdy background. Here's the very simple formulae for calculating anything you want and a small software program for Mac or PC computers to calculate exposure based on B&W film. I simply use the 5D to determine the required exposure and then change that to say f 180 to get the exposure time (use the calculated f stop for the pinhole size and focal length used.) If it's for the digital camera, adjust shutter speed based on the LCD image and histogram.

In practice, for film* there's tons of latitude and it works. For digital, of course, it's so much easier!

Asher

*For film, one needs to add extra seconds to calculated exposure time whenever one uses long exposures. This is required to account for "reciprocity failure" of the emulsion, meaning further photons effect less silver ions and so one needs to progressively expand the time. There are simple tables for this for each film you might use.

[Asher Kelman]

The pinhole is in fact a very sophisticated lens. It has predictable optics.


© Steve Teitelbaum

Tell me that your glass lens image of the still life photographed by Steve Teitlebaum would be better! This picture's special distribution of focus and lighting is uniquely different from what one would achieve with a fine Leica lens!

These pinhole lenses can, in fact, be a serious lens as any other purpose designed lens you might buy. The lenses you use are designed to focus a particular slice of the world, an subject plane on a flat focal plane. Only that slice the subject will be sharply in focus.

The pinhole image, however, images pretty well all parts of scene to the same focal plane. However, that focal plane is curved! So the image will give a different and important sensory effect. If for example my 6x9 pinhole image is printed on a curved surface, there will be an almost 3D "feeling" that one is in the world of that tree. To get the correct perspective one needs to position one's head so that the angle of view is 90 degrees for that particular lens.

Now we can also get lesser images and the effects might be desirable by the photographer.

Who says we need to image a thin slice of an image on a flat plane as the only way of taking a sample of light for imaging? For artistic work, the pinhole camera offers endless possibilities without photoshop morphing, warping and so forth!

Asher

[Gary Ayala]

Okay I'm sold ... I imagine that differnt sized pinholes will deliver different looking images ... how about shape ... has anybody experimented with different shapes? i.e. a horizontal or vertical slot ... star ... multiple pinholes, cross or X, triangle, happy face???

Gary

[Jack_Flesher]

Originally Posted by Gary Ayala

Okay I'm sold ... I imagine that differnt sized pinholes will deliver different looking images ... how about shape ... has anybody experimented with different shapes? i.e. a horizontal or vertical slot ... star ... multiple pinholes, cross or X, triangle, happy face???

Gary

the rounder the betterer

[Gary Ayala]

That, I am assuming is best for images which emulate what we expect a "normal" image to appear ... but, (the big but), have you stepped outside the box and tried multiple pinholes or slots, et al? (I imagine that multiple pinsholes will look crappy with overlapping/ghostlike images ... but just wondering?)

Gary

[Jack_Flesher]

Originally Posted by Gary Ayala

That, I am assuming is best for images which emulate what we expect a "normal" image to appear ... but, (the big but), have you stepped outside the box and tried multiple pinholes or slots, et al? (I imagine that multiple pinsholes will look crappy with overlapping/ghostlike images ... but just wondering?)

Gary

Actually, I have tried the multiple holes array It works, but generates significant "haloing" and softness -- it does however shorten exposure times by a factor equal to the number of holes.

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Gary,

As you can imagine, odd shapes and multiple pinholes have been tried. The latter are popular. Some are very elegant when the pinholes are spaced well around the camera. What one gets is a very intimate central image with a placement milieu for where what's central is happening.

I'll look for examples of some to purchase, although, with simple designs available one can build one easily. Some are available for purchase made so elegantly one at a time by master craftsman and may cost even up to $1200! Most pinhole cameras are $30-$300.

Asher

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Gary.

Originally Posted by Gary Ayala

Thanks Jack ... that is what I'll do. On the 5D, will is a pinhole in the body cap be of sufficient distance to fully cover the sensor, or do I have to extend the pinhole out?

I think the entire sensor would be covered in any case (assuming that the hole is in a thin member).

With the pinhole in the body cap, I think your field of view will be about the same as you would get with about a 47 mm lens.