Pinhole image Quality?

Calling all Pinholaholics- Could you please tell me how good pinhole images

are? I've seen a wide range. Some are tack sharp and some that are blurry and

have bad light drop off.....so what gives?

How much of a difference if you're using a standard camera body vs. a self-

made camera? I'm looking at buying a Pinhole cap on my Pentax 67. Does

anyone have any experience with these cameras using a pinhole cap? Thanx

everyone and keep photographing!

The prime factor is the quality of the pinhole and the size for a given distance to the film plane. This site has some nice calculators for this. http://www.mrpinhole.com/

Sets of precision drilled holes are available, very handy to match the hole to film distance. Some people prefer a more diffuse look so the size is deliberately mismatched. The light fall off may be from film or paper where the image circle simply doesn't cover the whole surface. Attached is an example of this, which can be attractive to some people. The image is from an Altoids tin, exposure onto Ilford paper. I frequently use a Hasselblad with the body cap and zone plate, and an Xpan with a precision drilled hole taped to the drilled body cap. I like the quality of the images.

The photo police, the Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolutionary Photo Techniques, will tell you it's pointless and confiscate your photographic materials. They will be frightened by the attached image.

Good luck and enjoy your experiments.<div></div>

As Mark stated, the results vary quite a bit from pinhole to pinhole - if you make your own you have a lot more control over the results. As far as your camera goes, if it uses an electronic shutter be prepared to buy a lot of batteries as pinhole images are typically very long exposures. I make a pinhole body cap for a K-1000 that works very well with the mechanical shutter, and my RB67 and 4x5 camera also work well with pinholes, but I would not try pinhole work with my M645 due to the cost of batteries.

- Randy

Good comments above.

I'm not a fan of the 'body cap' style pinholes, but that's just because of the view they give. Usually a body cap pinhole will give something close to a 'normal' view (around 85mm for your 67). I adapted my Bronica SQ to allow for shorter 'focal length' pinholes (which suits my view better), but I have to leave the mirror locked-up to stay out of the way of the pinhole apparatus. I made the pinhole set and holders out of some pipe from the hardware store and some thin-guage stainless steel plate that I shaved thinner.

I like pinhole cameras because if you're handy at all you can make them out of all sorts of stuff.

And I find that polaroid film is a lot of fun with a pinhole camera, too!

Good luck!

Pinhole Image Quality seems to be a contradiction. We use pinholes to give us images that have less technical quality than we would find from a fine lens, but more artistic character.

The image characteristics will vary from pinhole to pinhole. I've seen laser pinholes that are hard to distinguish from an optical lens and those made by jamming a needle through a soda can that have interesting attributes to say the least.

Right now I occasionally use a pinhole body cap unit for my digital camera.

You really need to play with pinhole photography, view samples, and choose what you like.<div></div>

Hi Brad.

IMO pinhole image quality depends mor on film size than pinhole diameter/quality. I use 35mm, 6x6, and 4x5. The best image quality is given by 4x5, then 6x6, then 35mm. But sheet film is cumbersome, while with roll film you can get as many as 12 6x6 pictures with 120 film, to 50-60 24mmx24mm pictures with 35mm film. The best performance (agility, compactness, quality) is given by 6x6.

Most of my pinholes and cameras are self made. Exceptions are the "kit" pinhole cameras, which come with a pinhole already.

I make pinholes out of aluminum coke cans, a needle, and fine sandpaper (#600 to #1200). With the help of a lupe I check the shape of the pinhole. If you have SLR camera and a 28mm lens, you can also use the lens "reversed" to magnify the pinhole the same as a good lupe. Finally, if you have a scanner you can scan the pinhole with 4800dpi together with a ruler then you can even measure its diameter.

Take a look at my site

http://www.panoramio.com/user/30065

Cheers,

Marcio