Among all my little experiments in the photography world, I have to say that pinhole is one of my favourite, for the fun and the immediate effect.
How to make a pinhole with what is at hand?
Necessary material
> A box, rather in metal, lightproof (1)
> Black adhesive tape (2)
> Matte black paint, better in spray
> A nail or a needle
> Some photographic paper fitting the box size (3)
> Two developing trays (4)
> B/W paper developer (5) , fixer (6) and squeegees (7)
> A measuring beaker (8)
> A red light (9)
> Rubber gloves (10)
> A plastic syring (11)
> A lightproof room
> A kitchen sink with tap water
I used a round whiskey bottle box, but whatever lightproof metal box will be great !
Verify that your shutting system works correctly and that it is practical to use in the dark. The most delicate thing is to make a good quality lens. The hole must be small enough , but not too much, to avoid diffraction and allow light to pass.
Paint the inside of the box in black. Don’t forget a shutting system for the lens hole. A black adhesive tape can do the trick.
The camera is now ready!
Then all you have to do is to set up a photo lab in your bathroom, or broom cupboard, or any room of your house which can be totally lightproof.
Exchange your standard bulb with the red light and install your lab: 1 developer tray, 1 fixer tray, squeegees, gloves, rope and clothes pegs to dry photopaper. To prepare the working solution of developer and fixer, you have to mix the concentrate and water, according to what is written on the bottle (that’s is where the syring comes in handy ).
When everything is set, slide a photo paper in the camera, along the side opposite to the hole. You can fix it with 2 small pieces of adhesive tape.
Now enjoy! Choose a point of view, make experiments…
To find correct pose time , there is no other way than to make tries , it can last some seconds or more than one minute, according to the place’s luminosity, as with a classic camera !
When you have taken a shot, develop the photo paper under red light. It consists in plunging it at first into a revelater bath (3 minutes), then in a water bath to stop the revelater effect (1 minute) and finally in a fixer bath (5 minutes) Then you just have to rinse the paper and to dry it.
You got a negative image.
To get the positive image, I move on computer. I scan my picture and I use the function “Invert” on Photoshop. Here we are, you are ready to make magic pictures! Taken without much equipment and with so much charm as the first photographic experiment.
A good time to try pinhole is april 26, 2009, which is the Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day ! More details here.
Enjoy !
Comments
You can actually contact print your paper negative onto new paper to get a positive print – I’ve done it before when printing from slides because I couldn’t be bothered buying direct reversal paper.
It’s not that hard – just requires exposing the new paper to light trough the negative print when they’re pressed together face-to-face.
that’s great, I’ve never thought about using photo paper instead of a roll of film! Is it 5×4 stuff you use?
I totally forgot about world pinhole day, there’s so many event ‘days’ coming up with pinhole day, commie cam day, polaroid week, and toy camera day later in the year!!
Andrew, photo paper has long been favoured as a cheap alternative to larger films.
The only downsides are A) that it’s about ISO 6 (which isn’t necessarily bad) and B) it’s orthochromatic, so you’d better like photos taken with a blue filter.
i haven’t yet forayed into the pinhole world, but it looks a lot simpler than i thought! might have to give it a shot.