It’s WORLD PINHOLE DAY 2009…yay!
This guide is a bit late, but it may serve you well in future. I’ve taken one of my old (broken) Holgas and turned it into a pinhole. Here’s how to do it:
What You Need
1.A Holga, preferably already broken! It does however need a working shutter. My holga’s lense snapped off, which made this perfect for what we need.
2.A cable release, unless you have incredibly steady hands, you may struggle to hold the shutter down for a few seconds!
3.A pin, or needle, to make the hole.
4.Black tape, to seal it all up.
5.Something to use as your ‘lens’
And that’s it! Nice and simple.
Instructions
1.Remove The lense
Mine had already fallen off! After the lense is off, also check that the shutter is still working. As an aside, the aperture switch works on this broken model, which is unusual for a holga!
2.Find a suitable item to put your pinhole in
I used a top of a spice jar, that fitted perfectly in the hole left by the lens. You could use a bit of aluminium can cut out and taped down. Alternatively, you could remove plastic lens from the lens barrel and cover that small hole up with something, and then put your pinhole through that. OR you could use the lense cap taped over the camera etc etc… There’s loads of ways to do it!
3.Make your pinhole
Use your pin and pierce a hole into the centre of whatever you are using to cover the shutter hole. Make sure you pierce from the inside out, so you get less rough edges on the inside of the hole.
4.Measure the width of your pin
It’s better to have digital callipers, but measure the width of your pin! My pin was roughly 0.75mm. Write down your value!
5.Fix your ‘lens’ to the camera
In this case I had to simply push my spice jar lid into the hole.
6.Measure the distance to from the hole to the film
This is to get your focal length. Mine was pretty much 50mm. Write down your value. We’ll need it later.
7.Tape Tape Tape
Tape your lens down well!
8.Check your pinhole and shutter works
take a look through the back to ensure it all looks good.
9.Attach the Cable Release
I just used tape to hold it in place. Do a few tests to make sure it doesn’t move around too much. Alternatively you could just buy the cable release adaptor.
10.Do some Math
Take your focal length (50mm for mine) and divide it by the width of the pin (mine was 0.75), and that should give you your aperture!
50/0.75=f66ish
Next go onto mr pinhole’s exposure guide and enter the f value and you will be presented with a table. Simply use the table that mr pinhole generates with a lightmeter to figure out your exposure time. For example, this is the one for my pinhole:
so if my lightmeter said to use 1/60 on f8, I would hold the shutter open for 1 second with my pinhole camera. Don’t forget to adjust the meter for whatever speed film you are using.
11.Take some Photos!
grab your tripod and take some photos. I’ll try and get some of mine developed next week and post them, unless they are a complete disaster!
Comments
Great guide.
Just wish that id read about “Mr Pinhole” before I went out yesterday (Sunday)!!
Guess what happened?
Il have better luck next time! Hopefully.
TC
oh no! were they all underexposed/overexposed?
I’ve got a bad feeling about mine, the theory is sound, but 1-2 second exposures doesn’t seem long enough to get all the needed light in from such a small hole! Will wait and find out…
Hey,
Mine were heavily overexposed.
I adapted an old box brownie that took 120roll, knocked the lens out and used the bulb shutter that the camera had.
I tried a range of exposures from 1 sec to 20 secs but think that the hole being to big and the dodgy light leaks contributed.
Got a few more ideas now that ive made the pinhole so hopefully with a bit more experimentation il get something worth using.
TC all.
Good old fashioned experimenting (as taught by Blue Peter). I can’t wait to see if Andrew’s shots with a pin hole camera gives better results than with his Holga!
I’ve tried this. The great thing is that if you use a bit less tape- keep the screw thread free of tape- you can remove the pinhole and screw the lens back on mid roll. You can even use the pinhole and lens together (sharper than just a pinhole, but you get a bit of tunnel vignetting.)
My pinhole was 0.3 mm – to me 0.75 mm seems a bit big.
yip, it was a wee bit big! Am trying again with a smaller pin (All i could find was a needle at the time!).
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