view camera pinhole photography

[stevefrens]

Hi,

I'm new to this site. I'm wondering if anyone has ever set up a view camera with movements using a pinhole instead of a lens. I made a 4x5 pinhole camera by taking the glass out of an ansco shutter and gluing a laser drilled pinhole to the aperture blades and threading the lens directly into a cigar box that i fitted to accept 4x5 film carriers. It takes wonderful pictures.

However I just picked up a graphic view II with a wollensack 90mm 6.8 lens (on a recessed lensboard). I'm planning on using it with a pinhole and trying out the camera movements. Not much info out there on this subject it seems........Since pinholes give you an infinite depth of field, would the tilt/shift adjustments still give you selective focus or does that just work with a lens with the aperture all the way open? I'm guessing that what would be more applicable is using the camera movements adjust for converging lines, etc. It will be a little while before I can get going on it but I do have some 4x5 fuji velvia left that I could use to test it out. Any insight would be appreciated. I have plenty of experience in arriving at exposure times with the cigar box 4x5 but not with camera movements.

here's a link to the color pinholes on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25732071@N06/sets/72157604840559163/

Thanks,
Steve

[Jim Noel]

The only movements which will make a difference are those in the rear to alter perspective. Exposure will be the same with or without movements.

[Drew Bedo]

Changing the distance between the lensand the plane by extending or retracting the bellows will alter the focal length of the system (wide-angle to tel) and the effective focal ratio…and the exposure

[Greg Lockrey]

Changing the distance between the lensand the plane by extending or retracting the bellows will alter the focal length of the system (wide-angle to tel) and the effective focal ratio…and the exposure

This true, but for purposes of sharpness there is one optimum focal length for any given pinhole diameter.

[reellis67]

I made an interchangeable lens board for pinholes for my 4x5, although I admit that I have not used it that much. I can insert one of three different pinholes, and then 'focus' by racking the front bellows to the appropriate suggested 'best' results focal length. It works well - just a mat board lens board with a slot on the inside for the different pinholes, also mounted on mat board (2-ply)

- Randy

[stevefrens]

hi, thanks for the quick responses. i will be using a fixed focal length, probably 3 inches, and i always refer to eric renner's book which has a detailed chart regarding focal length/pinhole size ratios/f values that i go over every time i start a new project. right now i'm thinking that if i order a laser drilled pinhole (i had success with my first one), it would be .012 inches (.3 mm) giving a working f value of essentially 256, which is great because it is 8 stops from f16 making exposure times pretty straightforward.

what i was really wondering was about the tilt/shift/swing movements of the view camera, so thanks jim, that was what i was half suspecting - that only the rear movements would be significant. too bad, but that's still good news, and i'll be looking forward to putting it together. i guess that i'll have to use the lens if i want to experiment with the front movements which does really seem appealing. the only setback is that it's a 90mm lens (which i'll have to take to a shop for a tune up as the slow speeds stick) and i've read that movements will be limited with its relatively short focal length. i probably won't be spending the money for a nice large format lens any time soon and pinhole is usually my main interest anyway. any photos using a pinhole in a view camera would be great to check out.

[numnutz]

I made a pinhole from a flattened aluminium can and mounted it an old filter holder then in a spare pre-drilled lensboard on my Gandolfi.

I used a needle I found lying around but later found via this free software ( http://www.pinhole.cz/en/pinholedesigner/ ) . That the optimum focal length was 200 mm. At the time I was using an Ektar 203mm lens so I used this for setting up the shot then I swap lensboards.

The software above has a good exposure calculator that include reciprocity failure calcilations.


Hope this is usefull

nn :)

[Ernest Purdum]

Front rise, fall and shift would augment the back movements. In particular, front rise would be helpful.

[Santo Roman]

Steve,

Check out this site: http://www.f295.org/Pinholeforum/forum/Blah.pl
I actually visit the forum a lot as I'm a pinhole guy as well. Lots of good information.

santo

[AF-ULF]

Pinholes have the same sharpness (or lack of sharpness) over the entire depth of field if the pinhole is parallel to the film . An object two inches in front of the camera will be as sharp (or unsharp) as an object ten feet from the camera. But, each pinhole diameter has a "focal length" where it will appear most sharp. If you have a pinhole which is sharpest at 3" from the film plane, it will be less sharp at 4" from the film plane. Consequently, if you use your rear movements to vary the distance from the pinhole to the film, you in theory would affect the sharpness of the image (the area of the film at 3" would appear sharper than the area of the film 4" from the pinhole.) Using shift or tilt at the pinhole plane would not vary the distance to the film more than a few millimeters, so the effect would be very minimal. Using rear movements will alter perspective, but you MAY be able to alter the pinhole to film distance enough to make the area of optimal sharpness noticeably sharper than other areas of the image.

[Wallace_Billingham]

Using rear movements will alter perspective, but you MAY be able to alter the pinhole to film distance enough to make the area of optimal sharpness noticeably sharper than other areas of the image.

you could also have a lot of light fall off which will result in darker exposures at the edges as you move the film away from the pinhole

[hobbim]

Shift and rise should work as normal, like the back tilt affect geometry.

Swing and tilt would change the "cats eye" fall-off, especially noticable on an extreme wide angle. For example, front tilt backwords would make the bottom of the film see a round hole ie. less fallof than the on the top that sees a cats eye hole.

I have a spare lens board drilled with a 2mm hole for framing and another board to hold the pinholes. A couple extra board a light equipment to carry for the moments you'd need them!