Pinhole photography

Hi All,

 

I am a high school photography teacher and am looking into a unit on pinhole photography but we don't have a darkroom. Has anyone ever tried/succeeded using cyanotype printing paper in a pinhole camera?

 

It's the only paper I can think of that doesn't require specialist chemicals for processing.

 

Thanks!

It should work okay. Good luck, sounds fun!

You should also be able to expose Polaroid film . . . there are also pinhole lenses made for DSLRs or you can make your own from body caps. Probably a great project for your class . . .

Procure a Polaroid camera and film. Test by taking a shot or two. Now cover the existing lens of this camera with a disk made of aluminum foil. With a sewing needle, pierce a hole in the foil at the optical axis (center of the existing lens). You have made a pin-hole camera. The tiny pin-hole you made negates the existing lens. The images you take will truly be made via a pin-hole camera.

In the early days of photography, there were hours long exposures.

 

Otherwise, most developers aren't all that special. D76 and Dektol

are easily available from many photography stores, and I believe mail order.

 

You could even use caffenol, maybe the least special developer.

With a changing bag and developing tank, you don't need a darkroom, though a room

with a counter and sink is nice.

 

I believe that current enlarging papers are faster than cyanotype paper, not all that hard

to develop, but you do need a mostly dark room. A larger closet could do.

 

Many ordinary digital cameras could do, too. It might not be so easy with

a phone camera.

If you have a (d)slr or mirrorless available, get a spare body cap, should only be 1$/€/£ or so.

 

Drill a hole through the middle, of a reasonable size, say 10 mm.

 

Tape a piece of aluminium foil over the hole, front or rear, doesn't really matter.

 

With a pin, punch a small hole in the middle of the foil.

 

 

In fact, buy a bag full of body caps, then you can experiment with different sizes of pinhole, shapes etc, maybe prototype something for an eventual film based camera.

 

 

Big advantage of the body caps is that the kids can happily work on their own individual projects for minimal cost without ever having to touch the expensive camera...

(I don't know how old or responsible 'high school' is, sorry)

The advantage of pinhole is the infinite depth of field/depth of focus. No matter how close the film is to or far from the pinhole everything is in focus. With a bellows you can slide the film back and forth to go from wide angle to telephoto and you don't have to focus to do that. (Exposure time would vary as the square of the linear distance.) I would see that as much more instructive than putting a pinhole on a standard camera with a fixed film to pinhole distance.

My understanding is that it takes several minutes to contact print a negative onto cyanotype paper using a direct strong UV light. How long would it take to get a good exposure on the paper at f/174 or higher?

I just bought a Diana Pinhole camera.

My understanding is that it takes several minutes to contact print a negative onto cyanotype paper using a direct strong UV light. How long would it take to get a good exposure on the paper at f/174 or higher?

Agreed.

I think the (lack of) sensitivity of cyanotype paper to visible light makes it a non-starter for pinhole photography.

 

There's the gum-bichromate process, but that's almost equally insensitive.... unless you have strong steady sunlight on tap and can wait for a several hour exposure.

 

What about using a changing bag to load/unload some fast bromide paper and develop it in a drum?

 

Always emphasising how ecologically irresponsible chemical photography is of course. Unless used for purely historical or demonstration purposes.