Pinhole cap on digital SLR - any good?

Wondering if anyone uses a pinhole body cap on their digital SLR.

 

I just bought a Canon 30D with a good 17-55mm 2.8 lens, but I remember all the

fun I used to have with my old box camera. I recently heard about digital

pinholes and have found some pinhole body caps for sale on the Pinhole

Ressource site.

 

Has anyone bought and used these?

 

I'm interested in the Film Base NO Dust Cap because I don't want to risk

getting dust inside the camera.

 

Any thoughts, comments or suggestions?

 

Thanks in adcance.

 

Cat

Buy one. Try one. Let us know.

 

Larry

I made my own by drilling a hole in the body cap, and taping in a laser cut pinhole. There are some issues, but it was still fun. I did a lot more digital pihole shooting than I ever have with film or paper because the instant feedback made it so fun. It was softer than what I recall getting using film or paper, but who knows if that was because of the DSLR, or my poor pinholing technique.

 

The main thing I didn't like was the focal length. Because of the x1.6, even a bodycap is normal to long. I prefer wider angle for my pinhole photography.

 

I'd think the greatest risk of dust would be when you were switching lenses/pinhole body caps, and I don't know how they could prevent that. We live on a giant ball of dust in a universe filled with dust. Your camera probably came already filled with dust. No matter what you do, you will have to eventually deal with dust on your sensor. Especially when you take your first shot with a pinhole cap on. With the pinhole's DOF you will see every bit of grit laying on your sensor, and it's a scary sight! You are going to wonder how your camera even takes photos with that much dirt on the sensor.

There were quite a few 'digital pinhole' entries for the 2006 Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day Gallery http://www.pinholeday.org/

I randomly started through the gallery and found image number 1278 and 1310. Enter the numbers in the 'Go To image #'. I use the Pinhole Resource Zone plate body cap with a Hasselblad. Nice products.

Thank you for the link to the Pinhole Photography Day Gallery. Many of the gallery�s images were taken with digital SLRs and pinhole body caps, and they are all much softer than the crisp box pinhole photographs I am nostalgic of. If taking digital pinholes is easier, I think I�m going to be disappointed with the results� Boo-hoo�

Oups! Those question marks aren�t supposed to be there�

check out f295.org. there are quite a few people using a digital pinhole. some put clear tape over the hole to keep out dust.

eddie

Cathy, I have found diffraction to be a real problem with sharpness and dSLR pinholes. <a href="http://sacredartichoke.com/images/pinhole/IMG_9021-01.jpg">this</a> is an example of a f/180 pinhole on a Canon 20D, with a 15 second exposure. At <a href="http://sacredartichoke.com/images/pinhole/IMG_9026-01.jpg">f/64</a>, things are a lot more tolerable. f/64 was obtained using a <a href="http://www.loreo.com/pages/products/loreo_lenscap.html">Loreo Lens In A Cap</a>, which is not a true pinhole.

I tried it. It works. You need to play with exposure times.

 

My complaint with using it on a digital camera is that it comes out mainly as a fuzzy photo. It looses the wide angle effect you get with a pinhole camera designed to give a wide angle effect.

 

Below is a test shot, and I didn't go any further with it.

 

I much prefer using a Holga lens assembly on my digital. See www.holgamods.com for samples.<div></div>

Lance - thank you for sharing your LOREO experience! Now this is closer to the kind of image quality and feel I'm interested in (although still not quite the magic of box pinholes). The LOREO dealer is unfortynately out of stock at the moment, but I asked to be notified as soon as a new batch is ready for shipment.

 

Question: how do you do you calculate exposure time? Say you want to take a photo at f.64 in medium-low light, do you use an external light meter to calculate the speed? And do you then set your camera speed dial to bulb and use a watch to calculate the elapsed time while holding down the shutter?

Todd - any examples of images you made with the Holga? It looks very similar to the LOREO lens cap, but is a bit more expensive. Why pay more?

Looks like another case where Film cameras are better. No I am not trying to start a flame. it is just that some things are better with Film and others are better with Digital. But then again Film photographers have had longer to figure out how to prefect their art. Digital is moving fast and now Digital photographers are going retro.

 

Larry

Dust - the plague of the pinhole photographer. Some recommend a UV filter in front of the pinhole to keep out the dust. Others make pinholes printed on photographic materials. Of course, this is all pure BS...

 

Here's something I wrote on dpReview a while back, that pretty much takes care of the entire non-issue of dust in pinhole photography.

 

Andrew's pinhole is 0.39mm, with an area of 0.15mm2. The normal lens opening of Nikon has an area of 1590mm2, about 10,500x that of the pinhole.

 

To put that in perspective, there's 3,600 second in an hour, so one second of lens changing = 3 hours of pinhole use. Even if you're pretty good at changing lenses, there's at least 10 seconds of uncapped camera time during two lens changes (pinhole on, pinhole off). So, you accumulate more dust changing to the pinhole and back than in 24 hours of solid pinhole use.

Matt, you can make, if not a wide angle pinhole, at least a much more "normal" one.

 

Most people take a lens cap, drill a hole, and attach the pinhole to the front. A typical lens cap is 5mm thick, which adds to the 45mm registration distance of your camera and gives you a 50mm pinhole.

 

Most cameras allow a lens to protrude several mm inside the lens mount. So, if you cut a hole in a lens cap large enough to accommodate a 35mm film can (proving Larry's point about the superiority of film) and mount the film can in the hole so that the bottom of the can just clears the SLR mirror (you may have to measure a bit to get it right), and put your pinhole on the bottom of the can, you can make a slightly wider pinhole. I've gone to 38mm that way.

 

If you want to get wider still, there is a risky procedure. I've done this on a Nikon D100, but I can't vouch for any other camera. Mount the film can so that it will go to within say 20mm of the sensor. Set the camera to either its "mirror up" cleaning mode, a 30 second exposure, or bulb mode, and mount the pinhole while the mirror is up. Now take a 30 minute, or whatever you use, pinhole shot.

 

Again, I don't know which cameras will or won't be harmed by this procedure. My best bet, if the camera will let you raise the mirror manually with a fingertip, it only drives the mirror up and relies on a spring to bring it back down, so you're OK "pinning" it up.

No What I said is that Film photographers have hade more time to play with this issue. Infact I think a 110 pinhole camera is more inline with using the smaller area of capture a Digital camera uses. if the mirror can be locked up there will be little problem. Most Film Pinholes don't have a mirror to contend with.

 

Thank you for mentioning my post but it was taken out of context.

 

Larry<div></div>

Cathy,

 

I just received a Holga lens mounted on a body cap for my 20D this weekend. There are a few quick shots using it at the bottom of <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00Gv0N&tag=">this thread</a> in the EOS forum.

<i>Question: how do you do you calculate exposure time? Say you want to take a photo at f.64 in medium-low light, do you use an external light meter to calculate the speed? And do you then set your camera speed dial to bulb and use a watch to calculate the elapsed time while holding down the shutter?</i>

<p>

So far, I've only taken shots that were less than 30 seconds, so setting the camera to manual or aperture-priority was sufficient to let the camera's meter figure out the exposure times. Past that, I would suggest getting a cable release rather than trying to manually hold down the shutter.

Larry, my apologies for any out of context quotes.

No problem Joseph

 

Larry

Here are some photos taken with the PinHolga camera. This is not a lens cap for a digital. This camera uses 120 film. The maker, Randay Smith, www.holgamods.com is selling the basic model for $19.95.<div></div>

tefphoto<div></div>

xxx<div></div>

Cat,

 

If you want an image with a digital camera that looks a bit like pinhole, you might want to consider the Holga body-cap lens mount from www.holgamods.com

 

Look at my recent thread here with pictures: http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00GouP&tag=

I/ve been fiddling with digital pinholes and zone plates since I recently took a pinhole workshop through UC Santa Cruz with Martha Casanave and Chris Payne. It's great fun, especially the instant feedback. I found no more problem with dust than with other lens changes. I have posted some photos in my gallery on this site www.photo.net/photos/SteveH.

Steve, good samples. I particularly like the seascapes. It seems that some specular light offers some drama to the image.