Getting sharp with it

Maybe I need to get a chess board ... but anyway, looking again at

<a href="http://pinhole.galactinus.org/vilva/index.html">Vilva's

shot</a> got me back to doing a close up - though not as close as

his. In the shot below, the wine label was about 24 inches from the

film plane of the 90mm pinhole box ... 0.36mm dia pinhole.

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4x5, Ilford Ortho Plus at EI 50 (it's slightly old) and juiced for 7

minutes at 20 degrees. The scan was at 1200 dpi and the main shot

was given a USM on each 50% resize downwards. This would give an

elderly Tessar a run for its money.

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<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/3487264-lg.jpg">

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The 1200dpi detail had no USM applied.

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<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/3487259-lg.jpg">

Juiced in Ilford DDX, I should have said.

That's outstanding. Care to share any of your secrets on creating pinhole apertures?

Mike, it's only a little different from what Joe VanCleave described in <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00CYsE">this thread</a>.

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I use stiff copper sheet, cut to the size of a slide mount. First the dimple, I use a ball-point pen and press lightly against a a piece of soft wood. Then, using what I think is an Arkansas oil stone (it's pretty fine) abrade the bump gently until a 1mm abrasion appears. This makes the bump thinner for the needle. They were difficult to find but I got some numbered needles - this one's a #13 which is 0.3mm dia.

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Carefully rotate the needle point against the depression - this is where you'll make burrs if you push in too roughly. The drilling motion is a bit like trying to light a fire, only real slow. Once the tip is through you should only go a short way up the 'cone' end of the needle, not straight up or right through - the hole is probably already bigger than the needle dia, so stop. Carefully abrade the bump side again - and then scan it. Check the dia in mm under Image Size.

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If it's not a circle you can try again gently with the needle. If the hole's too big - throw it away and do another.

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Fit to slide mount, use a black felt tip pen in the area immediately around the hole and black paint over the back of the rest of it. E Voila! Take shot. (How much do those people charge? :))

"20 degrees"

 

Sandeha, for those of us hopelessly trapped in Farenheit land, can you clarify your 20 degrees? You are measuring Celcius, yes?

Nevermind... 20C = 68F. Ok.

Are you guys never going to convert? :))

We did convert, 30-some years ago, but we did it in such a wishy-washy fashion most folks never noticed. Like Brits often still think in shillings and pence instead of new pennies, or weights in stone instead of kilograms, we've never gotten the populace used to thinking in metric (unless they went to engineering school, anyway). I'm not fazed if you give me a story problem with a mix of slugs, poundals, dynes, and inches -- but most Americans couldn't tell you what any of those even measure except for inches, and all but dynes are technically "English" based engineering systems...

 

But then I also learned to do problems like that on a slide rule, right before they disappeared completely.

It's really a half-baked mix in the UK - I've been relearning about pounds and ounces since I came back, but Fahrenheit still foxes me.

F = 9/5 C + 32.

 

I can usually do that conversion in my head. :)

All I know is that 40 below zero is the same, no matter which method you choose. A handy thing to know when you live where I do. The photo is stunning. Nice work!

Sandeha, this is a good image. I'm still amazed at how good pinhole looks when scanned, USM applied and posted.

 

And even though I've done a lot of paper negatives over the years, sheet film - even ortho - exhibits great tonal range, if properly exposed.

 

I like your "contemplative still-life" (my term for still-life's using objects of a symbolic nature); some fun juxtapositions of meanings!