Re: 4x5 Sheet Film

Your pinhole camera has an aperture of f/218 so you will need to give about
200 times the exposure that you would give at f/16 for what ever film or paper
you use. For example, I use 100 TMax film for my pinholes and if I get a
reading in bright sun of f/16 at 1/100 second for that film the exposure in your
pinhole camera would be 2 seconds. I use films rated at EI 100 or slower because
it is easy to time those exposures.

As far as paper negatives are concerned, I have used the Mitsubishi matte RC
paper with good success. It is about EI 5 when used for pinholes. Most papers
are orthochromatic (sensitive to the blue end of the spectrum but not the red
end) so the rendetion of colors will not be what you usually get with a black
and white film. One noticable difference will be that the sky is always white
without any clouds. If you get 4x5 paper you will need to trim it a little to
get it in the filmholder. Fornunately, you can do this under the safelight.

In either case you will need access to a darkroom for processing. I would
suggest tray processing the film in either HC110 or Rodinal, water rinse or short
stop, and fix in rapid fixer, then wash. Until you get the hang of it, start
out with no more that 3 sheets at a time. The paper can be developed with the
safelight on but the film will have to be developed, stopped, and fixed for
the first 2 minutes in total darkness.

I made my first pinhole camera for 4x5 sheet film and liked the efffect of
the contact prints so much that I made a second camera in 5x7. The bigger images
really add to the picture and the 5x7 in my favorite camera for pinholing.

Jim Stewart

In a message dated 12/15/2005 1:29:22 PM Mountain Standard Time,
holt.design@verizon.net writes:

> I'm looking for recommendations for photo-paper and sourcing
> for someone just getting into pinholing. I've built a camera (a gift) that
> uses
> a 4x5 sheet holder, now I need something to put in the holder (I know nothing
> about these matters). Critical specs on the camera are 83mm depth (pinhole
> to
> sheet) and .38mm diameter pinhole. Ideally anything cheap, consistent, and
> easy
> to self process is what I'm looking for.
_______________________________________________
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 Thu Dec 15 17:31:09 2005