Digital Pinhole Photograpy experiment!

AMc

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Inspired by this thread over at the e-group
Pinhole digital photography - Olympus UK E-System User Group
which links to this article
How to Take Pinhole Photos with a Digital Camera
I ordered a body cap with a view to ruining it to make a terrible lens :thumbsup:

My body cap arrived this morning, 99p bought me a body cap and a rear lens cap! (eBay item number: 253527086294)
Ordered on the 20th took 10 days from China. My experiment costs 49.5p + my time.


First thing was to find the middle of the cap.
I rubbed a bit of paper over then inside of the cap to trace out the inner cap diameter, cut that into a circle and test fitted it inside the cap.
That gave me a template which I folded into quarters then used the join to indicate the centre.
I then marked through the paper to give the drill a centre.
There's probably a better way to do this so feel free to make suggestions.
I drilled a 3mm hole - very simple using my knock off dremel like tool.

Then the fun begins...
I decided to try electrical tape to begin with as faffing with drinks cans sounded like it would be fiddly and slow.
Getting the smallest possible pin hole and trying to get that hole perfectly in the middle was a challenge.
Once you've stuck the tape down it's not really practical to peel it off and move it.
Ironically my first attempt was the best of the tape versions, I then tried several more goes with less success!

I tried tape on the inside and the outside, supporting the tape with a cork or a guitar pick to try and get the smallest hole.
Then I decided to try a cardboard cut out pushed into the cap.
I then held a guitar pick behind that and pushed the pinhole from the front.
Finally using the rear screen I was able to rotate the card so there was no interference from the 3mm hole.
In certain versions there were shadows that were clearly the edge of the drill hole.

It is possible to see a blurry image on the rear screen with the body cap on and no pin hole.
Now I think about it it might be a way to align a "perfect" tape pinhole.
Something for another day.


The kit


Bodycap adapted for pinhole photography
by AMcUK, on Flickr


Pinhole Bodycap Close Up
by AMcUK, on Flickr

My 'lens' is about 25mm (50mm equivalent) based on framing the church with the kit lens.

The E-M10 Mkii does a very impressive job of boosting the EVF/Screen to show you what you're likely to get so it's not quite "shooting in the dark".
As the weather is rotten today I just propped the camera on the window for the church shots.
Shooting in manual ISO 200 some of my shots went to 30 seconds but they weren't any better than the 3-5 second versions.
The gorilla and selfie were hand held in P mode - so a max of 1 second and ISO 3200.

JPG Straight out of camera - resized for the web


St. Mary's Digital Pinhole - Out of Camera
by AMcUK, on Flickr


St. Mary's Digital Pinhole - Out of Camera
by AMcUK, on Flickr


Digital Pinhole Portrait - Out of Camera
by AMcUK, on Flickr


Gerald Digital Pinhole - Out of Camera
by AMcUK, on Flickr



Auto adjusted in Lightroom


St. Mary's Digital Pinhole - Lightroom
by AMcUK, on Flickr


St. Mary's Digital Pinhole - Lightroom
by AMcUK, on Flickr


Digital Pinhole Portrait - Lightroom
by AMcUK, on Flickr


Gerald Digital Pinhole - Lightroom
by AMcUK, on Flickr


So a fun experiment for 50p. If the sun comes back I might go out and see what else I can do with it.
Any thoughts or questions feel free to chip in :thumbsup:
 
I had a go at this a couple of years back, I need to try and find my results. If I remember correctly they weren't as good as yours, but I still have the modified body cap so When I get chance I'll have another go.
 
While quality was never really the aim the Olympus stabilisation and ability to boost the screen to something visible made it a lot easier to use and get "something".
I was surprised that you got a blurry image from a 3mm hole in the cap, more surprised how much difference different pin holes made.
The more I think about it, the more I think that alignment of the hole is probably the most crucial thing and something that I haven't completely nailed.
When I was messing about with one of the tape holes I did prod the pin around while the screen was visible and you could see the end of the pin!
 
I had a trip to London last week and took the opportunity to try some more photographic experiments.

These were all taken with my homemade cardboard pinhole lens on my Olympus E-M10ii all at ISO 200 hence the long exposure times.

#1

Ghosts Liverpool Street Station
by AMc UK, on Flickr
5 seconds hand held

#2

Ghosts of Liverpool Street Station Tube
by AMc UK, on Flickr
15 seconds hand held - propped up against the advertising giving the reflections.

#3

Liverpool Street Station Escalator
by AMc UK, on Flickr
15 seconds hand held going down the escalator

#4
Chancery Lane Tube Train
by AMc UK, on Flickr
15 seconds propped on the arm of a chair, triggered as a train arrived.

#5

Chancery Lane
by AMc UK, on Flickr
Outdoors I was down to 0.8 seconds.

#6

Cittie of Yorke
by AMc UK, on Flickr
4 seconds hand held

Thanks for looking, constructive comments are always welcome :thumbsup:

If you feel inspired the next Pinhole Day is April 28th 2019
Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day
 
Last edited:
Looks like a lot of fun :) I also tried it a year or two ago and very surprised with the results although didn’t come up with a good image idea that it would be good for. So thanks for the inspiration I’ll dust it off :)
 

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