Hi Laura, I have quite a bit of experience with Pinhole. It looks like you are getting some camera movement. I don't know what kind of shutter you have. Often, I take a dark cloth and envelope the camera then open the shutter and remove the cloth. To close, I put the cloth on first then close the shutter. There are some very good apps for calculating pinhole exposure times - you either plug in the name of your camera, or add the F Stop and it will calculate recommended times for you. You also have to take reciprocity failure into account if you get into longer exposure times. Again, there is an app for that. I use a handheld meter (Sekonic) to help with exposure. The best film for long exposures is Fuji Acros, it can be exposed a long time before reciprocity failure (the film's ability to gather light) degrades. I tend to use slow film to drop the times down. If you can rig something so ND filters can be used that can also give you more latitude on exposure times. I use an ONDU and it has a magnetic 52mm filter ring. If you have a fixed subject, not subject to wind and have it in the foreground, it adds interest to a pinhole image. The trick is learning the field of view of your camera. I put arrows with a marker on the top of my camera, using a protractor to set the points. This helps with composition. Keep up the good work, it is gobs of fun. By the way, I hosted a pinhole challenge a while back and you can see some of my images posted there for others as examples. A master of pinhole is Zeb Andrews, a fellow member of the Film Shooter's Collective. Here is a link to his blog: https://www.zebandrews.photos/my-blog/2016/11/16/on-pinhole-what-you-gain-when-you-give-up-your-lens. View his imagery, follow his advice and your pinhole skills will advance quickly. Louis.
@brotherone Thank you. On my camera there is a tab you move to open and close the aperture. There is a guide on the back of the camera saying for 400 film on a sunny day the exposure is 1 - 2 seconds & on a dull day it is 2 - 3 seconds.
400 film is tough to use. It is too fast. Try a slower film. This will give you longer exposure times. Black and white film is good for pinhole. Make sure you have the camera set up on a tripod or other stable surface. Be very careful to smoothly open and close the shutter. If your camera suggests 2 seconds, try an image at 4 seconds or even 6 seconds. Black and white film has 6 stops of latitude so from 2 to 6 would fall with the range of the film's latitude and give you room for reciprocity failure. For color, Kodak Ektar is good, it will give wild colors. For black and white, Ilford Pan F (50 ISO) is good. And of course there is Acros (expensive). Are you shooting 35mm or 120 film? I hope I am not being intrusive, this is something I have a lot of interest in....Louis.
Last thing, if you can find out the F Stop of your camera you can use an inexpensive app that will calculate the suggested exposure for a specific film. The phone app will let you dial in your camera aperture and film and give you an exposure time taking into account reciprocity failure. I have exposed some images at dusk for 7 - 10 minutes. I find these apps work fantastic. I don't have my phone right now, but will send you the name of the app.
Hi Laura, the app is called Pinhole Assist. It is fantastic. You will need to know the F Stop of your pinhole camera. I also use Reciprocity Timer app.
August 31st, 2021
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