Mamiya 645 body cap/pinhole; fire shutter in usual way?

[markfields]

I am experimenting with a pinhole cap on my mamiya 645 body. (i plan to buy a pinhole

cap but this experiment i drilled the cap i had) My question is: Is it ok to fire the shutter

as I always have, excepting the difference being that I don't have a lens on the camera. I

mean,

having the body cap on it instead of a lens, when the shutter is fired, it won't hurt the

body or lens etc./?? I realize i'll probably need long exposures. I have a calbe release.

Is it better to lock up the shutter (using the "T" on the cable release and just putting a

piece of tape on the cap? Or should I just "fire" the shutter as the way to provide the

exposure? suich as 5 sec, 30 sec... what do i do if I want/ need 5 minutes?

I am assuming you just use the shutter as usual, preferrable using a cable release and

"hold" it open as long as necessary. I just want to know that its ok to fire the cocked

shutter with the body cap on the camera and that it won't damage anything. ( know you

can cock/fire the shutter without a cap or lens.

Thank you.

 

Mark

[roland_vink]

I was experimenting with a similar setup on my Pentax 645 before it was stolen so I don't know how the pictures turned out :-(

 

For my shots I just set the camera to aperture priority and let the camera meter work out the shutter speed. In bright light that may give a shutter speed of a second or two, well within the normal metering range. I'd expect those shots to come out fine. In lower light you may need to time it manually and increase the exposure to compensate for lower film sensitivity for long exposures.

 

For the picture taking process, I didn't do anything special - just put the camera on a good tripod and shoot. I usually composed with my standard lens and then swapped to the pinhole when ready to shoot. If the scene is very bright you may be able to compose with the pinhole in place but the viewfinder image will be very dark. The pinhole lens is like shoting with a regular lens with a veeeerry small aperture. As long as the pinhole is set into a regular body cap you won't damage the camera. Have fun!

[wayne_crider4]

I have a pinhole cap for my Mamiya Super (for sale btw, I'm going larger in pinhole format) and you can fire it no problem of course. Why eles would they sell the cap? Anyways, I lockup the mirror, but you don't have to.

[ranong]

i do not know about he shutter issue you mention causei sold my 645 years ago, but i have been playing extensively with pinhole shooting lately. first let me suggets you check out http://www.pinhole.cz/ for useful pinhoel diameter, exposure, and other related info. then check out http://www.f295.org/Pinholeforum/forum/Blah.pl? where you will have a library of info available to you. you probably do not need to worry about camera shake on any exposures about 5 sec or so, they just will not show up. have fun and becareful as pinhole photography is VERY addicting.

 

eddie

 

ps. i have aquired old folding 6x9 cameras and removed the lenses and installed a pinhole giveing me a pretty big neg. you can getthem for under 20$.