Saturday, July 24, 2010

this just in: pinhole results

I finished and then developed this morning a test roll with the Zero Image 4x5 pinhole camera. Well, strictly speaking this was not the first roll I'd put through the camera nor was it the second, but it was the first roll of Ilford Delta 3200 speed film I put through the camera while using two extension frames, making for a 50mm focal length and f/176. It was also the first time I tried shooting with the 6x9 frame on the roll back. My initial test rolls with this camera (I did a test with the 25mm pinhole and with the 25mm zone plate) did not result in images I was at all happy with. Part of the problem with those tests was that I had selected, in one case, the wrong type of film (color with the zone plate), and in the other case, the wrong speed of film (100--not good for the b/w indoor shots). The other problem I experienced had, perhaps, to do with the 6x6 mask for the roll back. My sense was that pictures often overlapped or at the very least there were odd light leak-looking overlaps frame to frame. To ensure that I didn't experience that again, I switched to the bigger, 6x9 mask and took care to replace the roll back's metal film shield between exposures. Oh yeah--and this: I also just crossed my fingers.

Having learned the hard way that the higher speed films aren't quite as high as one might think (and with it still being the case that the whole pushing/pulling film thing still has me confounded), I metered everything at 1600 with my digital camera and doubled most times to account for reciprocity error/correction. The images appear below in the order in which I took the shots--the first 5 were taken yesterday mid-afternoon and the last three were taken this morning at about 8:45. Again, since I've not yet gotten around to mixing up a new batch of Diafine and since I really don't trust the (very old) liter of Microphen I have here, I decided to do a Rodinal stand. This allowed me to write while the film cooked. Below each image appears the time of the exposure along with the f-stop and shutter speed taken from the digital camera. Again, exposure times were at least doubled in most cases.

. . .oh yeah. and clearly, my obsession with the crutches rages on.


















f 2.7, 1/200 = 30 second exposure


















f 2.7, 1/20 = 7 minute exposure



















f 2.7, 1/10 = 15 minute exposure


















f 2.7, 1/125 = 1 minute exposure


















f 2.7, 1/125 = 1 minute exposure


















f 2.7, 1/1600 = 7 second exposure


















f 2.7, 1/1600 = 7 second exposure


















f 2.7, 1/1600 = 7 second exposure

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi-

Very interesting experiments. Your posted samples seem to be equally sharp - what combination looked sharpest to you?

On the state park entrance - is that the one on rt 40? I'd like to follow your lead and take some shots on a weekend as soon as the temps drop a bit.

remediate this said...

i'm not sure which combos seem sharpest, since i've not organized them that way. --and yes the one on 40.