pinholes from venice
Discussion
matt gravy said:
we used to share and discuss photos
good point. and in that spirit, here are some of my pics I took in venice last year with my 1dsII and home made pinhole, following on from this thread,
www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=211188&f=109
Personally I really like them, but I am interested to hear what other people think. It was certainly good fun making them, I even had to use a tripod most of the time (shock horror!!!!), exposures were normally in the 5-15 second range. I havent bothered much on these images with dust removal - theres a hell of a lot to do at f/160! Anyway, enough with the talking,
Finally, some photographs in the photography forum!
I'm going to sound like an arse kisser, but hey ho...
I remember when you posted a thread a year or so ago with photographs from Russia, I found them really inspiring, and it really motivated me to try to be more creative with my camera.
These seem to have prompted a similar reaction in me. This one stands out:
Love it.
I'm going to sound like an arse kisser, but hey ho...
I remember when you posted a thread a year or so ago with photographs from Russia, I found them really inspiring, and it really motivated me to try to be more creative with my camera.
These seem to have prompted a similar reaction in me. This one stands out:
Love it.
_dobbo_ said:
Finally, some photographs in the photography forum!
I'm going to sound like an arse kisser, but hey ho...
I remember when you posted a thread a year or so ago with photographs from Russia, I found them really inspiring, and it really motivated me to try to be more creative with my camera.
These seem to have prompted a similar reaction in me. This one stands out:
Love it.
thanks i'm glad you like them. i really had fun making them, it was good to do something different (even if it was "smashing up a boat to make a raft"
) in a place which must be one of the most photographed on the whole planet. trying to compose pictures when you can't see through the viewfinder is definately an experience...
dcw@pr said:
Panning practice required for number 4 though! Or was it too sharp so you added some blur?
ever tried a 2 second hand held pan when you cant see through the viewfinder even before you press the shutter?
Yup. And no it didn't produce a sharp result. Well, any result really.
Did get a few almost shots night rallying panning on a B setting with a flash chaser but that was a bit of a cheat as I could see a little before pressing the shutter even if the little was only headlights or tail lights.
Now if you were to use a watercolour effect and claim it was a discovery of a work by Turner you cold be on to something!
(I rather like it btw.)
dcw@pr said:
Now if you were to use a watercolour effect and claim it was a discovery of a work by Turner you cold be on to something!
(I rather like it btw.)
good plan. but i was actually going to pretend they were early photographs and sell them for millions like that...
OK. Sounds good.
Perhaps still claim that Turner took it being a little acknowledged secret pioneer of photography who taught Fox-Talbot all that he knew.
All you have to do is crop it to 16" by 18" (why did the BBC report is at 41cmx48cm ffs. When would metrication have been a consideration of an American Photographer over a hundred years ago? Or even now for that matter?) and print on some old photo paper and you could be a few million in.
In terms of rarity I have some shots of which I can be sure that less than 3 prints exist. How does that value them?
ok, i thought you would never ask 
Making - I did take some pics of this with my dad's camera, but I don't have them to hand, and I've left the pinhole in Cambridge so I can't photograph it now. I will try to remember to bring it back after the weekend. I started with a canon body cap, which was going to be the foundation of the lens. I figured out the centre point (roughly) and made a hole with a hot needle, and enlarged it slightly. It turned out that this wasn't big enough, so I then enlarged it further with a screwdriver that I heated up on an electric hob. The next step was to make the actual pinhole. I read up on this on some websites, and to be honest, it was a lot easier than any of them made out. I used a tonic water can, and cut out 1x1cm squares from it. With the first I just made a hole with a needle by sticking it all the way through. I then stuck this over the hole on the back of the body cap, and attached it to the camera. A few test pictures later and I was not too impressed with the results - very blurry. So, for the next attempt i only pushed the pin in a small amount, so that the pinhole was not as wide as the entire thing. I then sanded over both side of the aluminium as i wanted to remove any burrs from the edges of the hole. This closes it back up, so you have to reopen it with the tip of the needle again, and then sand it down once more. keep doing this and you will get a very nice looking hole - it only took a few minutes in total. I tried this one out on the camera and it was much sharper. I would guesstimate that the hole's diameter was 0.4mm. For the third attempt I made an even smaller hole, maybe 0.2mm, by not sticking the pin as far through the aluminium. This resulted in a worse image than the previous attempt, although still better than the first. So that's the story of how I made the lens. All in all it took me about an hour.
Taking - Most of the time this just requires a little patience. it is sometimes possible to see a small amount of detail through the viewfinder if you are in bright sunlight, but most of the time it is guesswork. My process involved spotting what I thought would make a nice picture, then sometimes I would take a picture handheld just to see if it was worth continuing. If it was, I set up the camera on the tripod pointing where I thought was correct. I chose normally to try and nail the exposure first, which is just trial and error. I used exposures ranging from 15 seconds at ISO 800;
to 1/15 seconds at ISO 200;
Getting the camera pointing in the right direction was the hardest bit, especially if the composition was tight. The two that were particularly difficult were
and
The one above was a special PITA, and it must have taken 15 minutes or more to get right. I had some guy standing behind me with his wife - i think he knew what i was doing, and was explaing it to the Mrs, and there was also a 15yr old girl who was tittering at my visible boxer shorts as i bent over the camera (can't blame her though)
So technically it's not really very hard, I guess the difficult bit is thinking of subjects. Most of these pics were taken in an afternoon that I spent walking around by myself - I found that people aren't too keen to accompany you as it's a bit boring to watch someone operating a pinhole. It is a good way of learning your way around a city. in particular I tried to go to some places that would give me non-typical venice pics, and I think I managed that with a decent number, the most obvious examples are
and
i'm happy with the one of the door above since i think the toning and light quality is superb. its down a 5 minute walk into a dead ended alleyway on the Giudecca - I doubt that door has ever been photographed before!
incidentally, the first and the last four pictures were not actually taken on Venice itself, but on or around the smaller surrounding islands.
there you have it - a beginner's guide to pinholes. i haven't used it since I got back, so in total I only used it for about about 4 days. I've just gone back and counted that I only attempted 53 different photos, although it took multiple attempts to get them right. Still, 32 keepers out of 53 isn't too shabby
hope all this was/helpful/interesting etc...
i would love to see someone else on here have a go, and see what they come up with. consider this a challenge!
Making - I did take some pics of this with my dad's camera, but I don't have them to hand, and I've left the pinhole in Cambridge so I can't photograph it now. I will try to remember to bring it back after the weekend. I started with a canon body cap, which was going to be the foundation of the lens. I figured out the centre point (roughly) and made a hole with a hot needle, and enlarged it slightly. It turned out that this wasn't big enough, so I then enlarged it further with a screwdriver that I heated up on an electric hob. The next step was to make the actual pinhole. I read up on this on some websites, and to be honest, it was a lot easier than any of them made out. I used a tonic water can, and cut out 1x1cm squares from it. With the first I just made a hole with a needle by sticking it all the way through. I then stuck this over the hole on the back of the body cap, and attached it to the camera. A few test pictures later and I was not too impressed with the results - very blurry. So, for the next attempt i only pushed the pin in a small amount, so that the pinhole was not as wide as the entire thing. I then sanded over both side of the aluminium as i wanted to remove any burrs from the edges of the hole. This closes it back up, so you have to reopen it with the tip of the needle again, and then sand it down once more. keep doing this and you will get a very nice looking hole - it only took a few minutes in total. I tried this one out on the camera and it was much sharper. I would guesstimate that the hole's diameter was 0.4mm. For the third attempt I made an even smaller hole, maybe 0.2mm, by not sticking the pin as far through the aluminium. This resulted in a worse image than the previous attempt, although still better than the first. So that's the story of how I made the lens. All in all it took me about an hour.
Taking - Most of the time this just requires a little patience. it is sometimes possible to see a small amount of detail through the viewfinder if you are in bright sunlight, but most of the time it is guesswork. My process involved spotting what I thought would make a nice picture, then sometimes I would take a picture handheld just to see if it was worth continuing. If it was, I set up the camera on the tripod pointing where I thought was correct. I chose normally to try and nail the exposure first, which is just trial and error. I used exposures ranging from 15 seconds at ISO 800;
to 1/15 seconds at ISO 200;
Getting the camera pointing in the right direction was the hardest bit, especially if the composition was tight. The two that were particularly difficult were
and
The one above was a special PITA, and it must have taken 15 minutes or more to get right. I had some guy standing behind me with his wife - i think he knew what i was doing, and was explaing it to the Mrs, and there was also a 15yr old girl who was tittering at my visible boxer shorts as i bent over the camera (can't blame her though
) So technically it's not really very hard, I guess the difficult bit is thinking of subjects. Most of these pics were taken in an afternoon that I spent walking around by myself - I found that people aren't too keen to accompany you as it's a bit boring to watch someone operating a pinhole. It is a good way of learning your way around a city. in particular I tried to go to some places that would give me non-typical venice pics, and I think I managed that with a decent number, the most obvious examples are
and
i'm happy with the one of the door above since i think the toning and light quality is superb. its down a 5 minute walk into a dead ended alleyway on the Giudecca - I doubt that door has ever been photographed before!
incidentally, the first and the last four pictures were not actually taken on Venice itself, but on or around the smaller surrounding islands.
there you have it - a beginner's guide to pinholes. i haven't used it since I got back, so in total I only used it for about about 4 days. I've just gone back and counted that I only attempted 53 different photos, although it took multiple attempts to get them right. Still, 32 keepers out of 53 isn't too shabby
hope all this was/helpful/interesting etc...
i would love to see someone else on here have a go, and see what they come up with. consider this a challenge!
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