Pinhole photographers- what paper to use?

Hi,

Was hoping to get some advice on paper choices for use in a pinhole

camera.

Ive been doing alot of research but cannot seem to find anything

concrete to go bye.

My quetion(s) is: What is a good paper to start with for pinhole

images? fiber based, resin coated, variable contrast, graded???

I plan on making contacts from the paper negative and here are my

dillemas. Ive read that glossy resincoated paper tends to reflect

light inside the camera more than a matte fiber based paper, but,

one cannot make a contact print from fiber based paper....is this

true?

Any help on this subject will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Chuck,

I've used a bunch of papers in my cameras with my students, a matte or semi-matte finish

does seem to work best, glossy may cause some problems, although it depends on the

camera (small wide angle vs. "tele") You can make contact prints through fiber paper

(single weight would be best) but I would go with RC for the speed and flatness. I've used

Ilford RC with good sucess. Just don't get a paper with any printing on the back (like Agfa

and Kodak used to make, because that will print too!)

Thanks for the help, Erik. Much appreciated.

Ilford MG IV Pearl finish is good. For pinhole use, rate it at around ISO 6.

Chuck;

 

I've done lots of pinhole, on lots of different papers (but certainly not all of them). Here's my thoughts on achieving the best sharpness and tonal range with pinhole:

 

1)Optimal pinhole size for your focal length. This is especially important if you're trying to get scenic/landscape shots to look reasonably sharp. And if your primary subject matter is much closer than infinity - like still life subjects - make the pinhole smaller than what you'd use for objects near infinity (because the geometry of linear projection works against you at close focus distances).

 

2)For flat film-plane cameras (i.e., not oatmeal boxes with curved film planes), use GLOSSY paper. Glossy will give you much sharper contact prints. If the inside of the camera is darkened with flat black paint, glossy paper won't be a problem with flat-filmplane cameras.

 

The problem with curved filmplane cameras is you have to use matte finish paper, otherwise you get a band of over-exposure along the middle of the film's curve, due to reflection. You loose a lot of detail when trying to contact print from a matte-finish negative, which is one reason I rarely dabble in curved-filmplane cameras.

 

3)Contrast control in harsh lighting is difficult with paper negatives. I like to shoot scenics in the American Southwest, but the shadows are very harsh and unforgiving.

 

My best results to date: grade 2 glossy paper. Specifically, Arista grade 2 RC, but any graded paper should work better than multi-grade paper. My gut feel is its the blue/UV in daylight that activates the high-contrast portion of the MG emulsion, yielding images difficult to print.

 

As for using fiber based for negatives, that's okay. Its better if its graded paper, but fiber is okay - in fact, graded fiber has a slightly better tonal range then graded RC. The only challenge you'll have is it tends to curl toward the emulsion side, so getting it into your contact printing frame, against the print paper, can be a challenge, especially if registration and positioning are important.

 

4) This week I've been experimenting with controlled pre-flashing of paper negatives, as a way to control contrast. I pre-flashed some paper under a grade 3 filtered light, underneath a sheet of white plexiglass, in the darkroom for 2 second, then exposed an outdoor image that otherwise would have zero shadow detail (we're talking paper white shadows, absolutely nothing) in the pinhole camera for about 1/2 of its normal daytime exposure (~30 seconds). The result: amazingly good shadow detail, with good highlight detail as well. The contrast range is really good for such a wide scene brightness range, onto paper negative.

 

One cavaet: when I pre-flashed the paper, I did so with the paper face down, under the sheet of plexiglass, because face-up pre-flashing was just too much light (it fogged it to black otherwise). The resulting shadow detail in the paper negative looked very "grainy" or "clumpy". I think this was caused by the grain of the paper that the pre-flash lighting has to filter through.

 

I'm going to do some more experiments with pre-flashing from the front of the negative, and see if the graininess in the shadows goes away.

 

I also have a hunch that you can achieve even more control of the paper's response curve by controlling at what contrast grade the pre-flashing light is filtered to. This, however, will involve lots of testing to verify and quantify.

 

SUMMARY: 1) Optimal pinhole size for your camera's focal length. 2)Flat film-plane camera. 3)Graded glossy paper (RC is okay). 4)Pre-flash the paper for additional control of contrast.

Just a brief update. Preflashing the front of the paper, using a dimmer enlarger light (lens at f/32) for 2 seconds with grade 2 light, then normal in-camera pinhole exposure onto grade 2 RC paper for ~1/2 of "normal" daylight exposure yields: nice paper negative with good tonal range, albeit a bit soft. And no graininess or clumpiness in shadows.

 

Made contact print using Ilford MG RC for test, grade 4 contrast. Really good tonal range. Its hard to tell its not film.

 

Will post images when Santa delivers the scanner.

Another good approach is lith film. (We used to work with Kodak Commerical in the good old days.) Cheap and can be processed by inspection under red/amber safelight just like paper development. Use DILUTE paper developer or, better yet, D-76 1:3 or even more dilute. HAVE FUN!!!

PS. The first image of my Luminous Landscape article was done with Kodak Commercial film.

WOW! You guys have been a great help! Im really looking foward to this project. Has anyone ever tried using color reversal film? im just curious as to how that would turn out.

 

Thanks again and keep the suggestions coming!

Normal daylight is a lot cooler then enlarger light so I guess that explains the point about VC paper getting high contrasty. Stick a yellow filter on with VC?

Joe - why bother preflashing your paper when you could use a lower grade paper?

Great question. The other advantage to preflashing is to improve the effective "film speed" of the paper negative. To get a good exposure under these test conditions of cloudy, overcast light, I'd have to expose for over 5 minutes. This required 1.5 minutes with preflashing.

 

What pre-flashing does is raise the base exposure that the paper sees, so the shadows aren't lost below the sensitivity range of the emulsion. I believe this to be one contributor to excessive contrast using paper negatives; to give adequate exposure otherwise in order to get some shadow detail, the highlights are blown out. To control highlight detail, the shadow detail never records.

 

The other major factor in control of contrast with paper negatives, as I stated earlier, is graded paper instead of VC.

 

Regarding ortho lith film: I've used it (Arista brand). I need to give it about the same exposure time as paper negatives to achieve adequate exposure (because its ortho), then have to use an extended development time in dilute developer to control contrast. This is a real pain when you're tray developing half a dozen negatives.

 

Also, the plastic base is thinner than standard sheet film, so handling the film requires more care when wet, and the emulsion scratches easier than standard film.

 

All told, I find paper negatives give me about the same quality of image, at less cost and more convenience.

Chuck, color reversal film works but if you want some really unusual photos, try type R paper, unfiltered.

How does the color image turn out? Are the colors similar to that in real life?

I have to admit, im not familiar with "R" paper...can you please be more specific? Thanks again to evryone who has replied.

....sorry, i made a mistake in my earlier post about the use of color reversal film. What i meant to ask was, has anyone ever used color reversal PAPER...not film.