Instresses: Pinhole fascination

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Pinhole fascination

Pinhole film photography is such a gratifying undertaking. I don't know what I love about it most. Delayed gratification, for one. There's nothing quite like seeing how the photos turn out, for me days or weeks after I took the photos. It's like receiving a letter in the mail.

Pinhole cameras also see the world in a dramatically different way than human beings. For a pinhole camera, everything is in focus and nothing is quite in focus. You can't use focus to draw attention to the subject, and there are no out of focus areas to hide distractions.

Pinhole cameras also usually have a much wider angle of view than humans. This can lead to what appear to us as wild distortions, especially if the camera is not level and flush with the subject. But this can also be exploited intentionally.

The wide angle of view means that you must get much closer to subjects in order for it to fill the view. But getting close to objects can also make them appear distorted.

On most pinhole cameras, there's no way of getting a preview of what the camera is seeing. To take photos, you need to use your imagination, and if you want to be more careful, you need to use tools and math. I now use a compass and a level when I take pinhole photos. I take note of how tall and wide my intended subject is, how close I am to it, and what objects are in the line of sight between the subject and the camera.

On top of this, there's the issue of the film and exposure. How long does the film need to be exposed to a scene? You can use a light meter, and calculate a time, which is usually in the range of several seconds to several minutes. But film is more complicated, because it has an issue called reciprocity failure, which requires the film to need to be exposed longer than the light meter says with longer exposure times. And each film is unique in its reciprocity failure.

For instance, if my light meter tells me to expose 100 ISO film for 2.5 minutes, I will actually need to expose it for a little over 8 minutes if I'm using Ektar 100 film. If I'm using Tmax 100 film, however, I will need to expose it for about 13.25 minutes. And if I'm using Velvia 100 slide film, I'll need to expose it for about 5.25 minutes.

All this is to show just how complicated it can get if you want to be a perfectionist. Otherwise, you can take a rough guess. And sometimes a guess is all you can do. For instance, in taking a photo during sunset, you may need to expose for 8 minutes, but during those 8 minutes, the scene is gradually getting darker. So do you need to expose for longer than 8 minutes? Yes, but how much longer? And if you're taking a photo in cloudy weather and during your exposure the sun comes out, do you cut the exposure short? Probably.

For these and other reasons, you pretty much never know what you're going to get when you get your photos developed. That's why it's so gratifying.

Here are some pinhole photos that didn't turn out as I'd imagined them:

I was expecting this rock pile to be more prominent and the grass to be less prominent. Also, there is the vehicle behind the rock pile that was unintended.

In my vision this rock pile would look like a mountain scene. The large trees in the background mess up that vision. In any case, I like how the close rocks and the far rocks are equally in focus.