RE: Making pinholes without a darkroom?

Malin -

One of my favorite pinhole cameras is a coffee can (I use a sheet of the plastic that photographic paper comes in to cover the can, then place the plastic top onto that, which makes it light-tight). It fits a sheet of 4X5 in it very nicely and takes wonderfully wide images. If you are truly strapped for space but do have a bathroom you can make light-tight, you could use the can itself to develop the film. Simply pour developer into the can, close it up, and roll it back and forth. When done, pour the spent developer into the toilet, pour in stop, and continue, finally doing the same with the fixer. This is how I develop from the 35mm film cannister I turned into a pinhole camera.

Ortho film is no less messy than "regular" film (same development process), but can be used under darkroom lighting, so if you have problems working in the dark then that might be an alternative. With a bit of testing, you might find its contrast to be better in terms of printing cyanotype, though it may not render the scene as well.

Cheers -

george

-----
http://www.GLSmyth.com
http://DRiPInvesting.org

 --- On Wed 06/16, Malin Fabbri < altprints@yahoo.co.uk > wrote:
From: Malin Fabbri [mailto: altprints@yahoo.co.uk]
To: pinhole-discussion@spitbite.org
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2004 02:38:55 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: RE: [pinhole-discussion] Making pinholes without a darkroom?

Hi All!<br>Thanks for all your excellent suggestions... all of them very useful.<br>The pinhole I had in mind is more a shoebox pinhole than an advanced<br>one with film loading capabilities.<br>The polaroid suggestions may be a good alternative... I guess I<br>somehow would have to fit a polaroid backing to the camera? Does<br>anyone have any practical suggestions on how to do this? Where to get<br>the polaroid backing, which one to get? But then I end up with the<br>polaroid snapshot look on the photographs, right?<br>The answer I was hoping to get was some handmade way of making the<br>image, which is why I was onto the Cyanotype idea, but you're right,<br>the exposure time would probably be around a month (Imagine the look<br>of that image!!!). :-)<br>I guess making an instant negative in the pinhole camera would work<br>and then I could go on to making a cyanotype afterwards. Ric, you<br>mentioned a polaroid negative film that doesn't need developing. Any<br>more details? The Ortho 8x10 film also sounds
 like a good<br>alternative... not too much of a darkroom mess going on there...<br>Kate... could you expand on the P.O.P. in the camera? How would this<br>work?<br>All your sharing of experiences are appreciated, I haven't<br>experiemented that much with pinholes, (I guess I'm about to start!).<br>All the best!<br>Malin<br><br><br>=====<br>Malin Fabbri<br>malin_at_alternativephotography.com<br>Join the newsletter and be the first to find out what's new<br>(no spamming - and never more than once a week):<br>http://www.alternativephotography.com/newsletter.html<br>All about the art of Alternative photography and processes<br><br><br> <br> <br>__________________________________<br>Do you Yahoo!?<br>New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage!<br>http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail <br>_______________________________________________<br>Post to the list as PLAIN TEXT only - no HTML<br>pinhole-discussion mailing list<br>pinhole-discussion_at_spitbite.org<br>FAQ at http://spitbite.org/pinhole-discussion/list.htm
l<br>

_______________________________________________
No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding.
Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com
_______________________________________________
Post to the list as PLAIN TEXT only - no HTML
pinhole-discussion mailing list
pinhole-discussion@spitbite.org
FAQ at http://spitbite.org/pinhole-discussion/list.html
Received on Wed Jun 16 04:47:26 2004