The Cameras ...
Maybe it is time to write something about the pinhole cameras I use. It is all about pinhole cameras and I own and use several of them.
The first little gem I want to talk about is the Zero2000. It is made by Zernike Au at ZeroImage. It takes rollfilm 120 and the image format is 2¼×2¼ inches. It is a nice little wooden box, it is small and I like using it. I bought the deluxe version of it, which contains a cable release and a level on top of the camera. It is so small that you can have it with you all the time. Although you have not seen any images on this site being captured with this camera - they will come eventually.
Then there is another camera which I use a lot right now, also made by Zernike Au. It is the Zero45 - the 45 stands for 4×5" inch film format. I like this camera because of the format, the negatives are big enough, but not too big to fit into my Durst enlarger. And it is pretty flexible as I can attach two more extension frames which let me use the camera with a "focal length" of 25mm, 50mm and 75mm. The cameras has 3 pinholes you can choose from which correspond to the mentioned focal lengths. You attach sheet film holders to the camera which are held by elastic bands. Also the frames are held together by elastic bands. This camera is still small enough to be carried in a not too big camera bag. It is still light travelling.
The third in the team is the rsph810 which I built myself. It is an 8×10" camera which you can attach sheet film holders similarly to the Zero45. It has a focal length of 90mm which produces a pretty wide angle of view. 8×10" pinhole images look impressive. When I first used this camera I thought about using a bigger pinhole diameter because the images then will look more like pinhole images.
But there is a price you have to pay. Compared to the other cameras, this camera is big, the film holders are big and you need a big bag to carry it around. It is not the weight, it is the size which counts. Because of the size you are also not carrying too many sheet film holders with you (well I anyway only have three of them) which also means some limitation. And to bring this rant to an end, also the negatives are big - too big to fit into my Durst 138 and that means that I can use these negatives for contact printing only.
Then in addition to these three real pinhole cameras I sometimes use a pinhole body cap for my Nikon camera. I also can use this body cap together with an adaptor to turn my little Panasonic Lumix G1 into a pinhole camera and do digital pinhole photography. But I have to say that I do not do this often.
Week 4: Yucca
This is again a still and me playing with equipment. New equipment that has to be tried out. What you see is a lith contact print from an 8×10" negative. The 90mm 8×10" camera was not standing near the plant, it was more about setting it up in the plant. And it was almost impossible to open the pinhole without shaking the leaves.
I bought a new lamp, an ADOLIGHT 3x (from PhotoImpex) which contains 3 energy saving bulbs and produces the light I need for my pinhole studio work. The problem with pinhole in the studio is, that you can not really use flashes. At least not the flashes I own which is just two old Nikon SB-24. To get enough light on the film through the pinhole I would have to fire these flashes more than 60 times at full power. So it is easier to setup the pinhole, start exposure and leave it alone for an hour. And another advantage - you actually can see your light. More about my "studio" in a later post.
I did two versions of this image - and you can see both versions here. First I had the ... well first I did a negative scan. Just because I never did an 8×10" negative scan with my scanner before. To be precise, I never scanned any 8×10" negative with any scanner before. The scan looked good, but it was nothing more than a negative scan. So next I did a print in normal print developer and sulfur toned it. That is what you see on the left. At the end of that printing session there was still room for some fun. That is when I put some Fomatone MG into lith developer. I liked that result more. Here it is. And I am curious which version you prefer.
Week 5: Yucca (next) ...
I am late this week. There was too much work and also I had some commitments for some APUG print exchanges. So I had to do a kallitype of last weeks Yucca. And I also printed this image again in lith for the so called group print exchange. If you are really interested in traditional photography you should give apug.org a try.
So this week I gave the Zero2000 and my yucca a go and produced some prints. Here it is. It is a direct carbon toned print on Adox Variotone. Hope you will like this one. The first of the other candidates (on the left) is only carbon toned for a short time and the second candidate (on the right) has no toning at all.
The film used was a Fuji Neopan Acros (my standard at the moment in the Zero2000) which I developed in Wolfgang Moerschs eco film developer. My usual standard developer for 35mm and 120 is XTOL, but I ran into some problems lately with XTOL and Acros, so this is my first try of this new developer. So far it looks good to me, very fine grain and nice tonality.
Week 6: A Small Chapel ...
This winter we have a lot of snow (for the region where I live). So it is hard to avoid the snow when going outside to make some photographs. Here is a take on a small chapel nearby. What you see is a detail, the entrance. Unfortunately, the door was locked. This is a lith print on Fomatone MG FB. I used the Zero45 at 75mm. On the right, also a lith print, you can see the whole chapel.
So still snow here, but who knows when I will be able to shoot snow again without any travel.
Week 7: A Tree ...
I took this photograph on the same walk I did last weeks chapel. It is a lith print on Fomatone MG FB.
This is shot up the tree and I wonder what the people thought about me sitting under the camera to make sure not being in the image. Better not to know.
I had no idea how this will come out and thought that my other try on this tree will be much better. But in the end, this photograph attracted me more than the other you can see on the left where I was not aware of the pole "growing" out of the tree. So I did not even print it, what you see is a negative scan.
But here is another tree in the snow (on the right), I photographed it at the same time I did the old shed but had no time to print it yet. It is also lith printed on Fomatone MG FB.
Week 8: A Field ...
This weeks image is from a negative I shot last year. But I had not had the time to print it yet. It is a field near the town I live. Done with the Zero45@75mm and now lith printed on Fomatone MG FB. There are still so many negatives which need to be printed. So every once in a while you will get to see some images from last year.
But showing this image was not the initial plan for this week. What I wanted to show this week was the ventilation part of a big water tank. You can see this image on the left. Once I had it printed I remembered the negative of the field and its similarity to this one - well, triangular-pattern-wise. So I printed this one too and in the end I felt that the image of the field is just the nicer of the two.
Week 9: The Last Glass ...
It is still time again. And 8×10 time too. This week I took an empty bottle and a wine glass and set it up in the home "studio". I used the 8×10 inch camera and my small studio light. I tried a normal silver print and a lith version. And I had a hard time to get the text on the bottles label to show as the color of it was pretty light. In the end I managed it, but boy, I really needed more than one or two tries. On the left you see the normal developed print on Adox Fineprint Classic, above is the lith print which I like more. It is done on Fomatone MG FB.