Pinhole Resources

Friday, December 21, 2018

Pinhole distance role reversal with the Variable Cuboid.

With the first roll through the most recent iteration of the Variable Cuboid, I primarily used the 100mm front for exteriors and the 35mm for interiors.  To do due diligence, this time I switched and used the longer front inside and wide-angle out and about.

I started with a walk around the neighborhood. The Glad Tidings Tabernacle is just around the corner from my house. I've always liked the simplicity of the structure and the large plain windows. Looks like a little bit of curvy film on the right there.


The Centennial Inn assisted-living facility is nearby on Main St. Originally built in 1902 as the Ladies Benevolent Society Home, it looks shocked by my temerity.


I've recently heard a lot of discussion about how the surprise element of seeing what you've actually photographed was one of the delights of pinhole. The bit of curvy film in the church image and the pointy stretched-out corner of the Centennial Inn are some of those impossible-to-really-preview-in-your-head situations. Here's another with our big back yard hydrangea. The camera was actually touching the nearest branches and virtually the whole tree is in the picture. You can barely squeeze between it and the garage but here it looks like there's plenty of room. The garage looks smaller than the shrub. Your brain just won't let you see it like this even though it's kind of what's projected on your eyeballs and they're curved as well. But the pinhole reveals all.



The weather was exceptionally gloomy. Back inside with the 100mm mounted, I pointed the camera at Buddha's corner by natural light and left to go across town to the farmers market, do a little shopping and have lunch. After we got back, I forgot to close the shutter for another 20 minutes.


The gloom persisted. Here's a nice academic study of some silver by artificial light.


Moving on to the glassware. Amazing how still those pull chains on the lamp are. We had lunch a few feet away during the exposure. Check out the refraction of the base of the lamp through the clear decanter.


The sun came out for a while one morning.


I finally decided to defy the gloom, put the 35mm back on and just go out and wait as long as the exposures took.

I've had my eye on this building for some time. It was recently remodeled and houses the alarmingly named marketing agency DealerFire. There's a little walled garden behind the building for employees to hang out in, so I had a nice place to sit and wait 8 minutes for the exposure somewhat out of the wind.


I've been waiting all year to photograph this delicious grid of reflecting windows. The street in front of it and half of downtown was under construction all summer. You can see the plastic covering a ramp they poured just before they finished.


The nifty grid and the fresh concrete were the first thing that caught your eye, right? You may have noticed that I occasionally suffer from curved film. It happens because the film transport in my cameras can be a little tight and you have to loosen the supply a little bit and then take it up on the other side. This can push film out into the image chamber which you may have to retighten around the supply to pull back up against the image plane. I do like perfect grids and I do try to retighten the film but sometimes I forget. It was cold and windy. This is a disaster with a lensed camera but with pinhole it's just kind of funny. I'm afraid to admit that I'm beginning to like these random distortions. I've always avoided curved film planes because to me they stamp a standard look on the composition but this random stuff is kind of fun. I'm not sure what should be done about it. Maybe be more careless winding the film?

The 35mm front has .25mm pinholes. All except the tree were done with the rising pinhole.

The 100mm front has .35mm pinholes. All these were with the on-axis pinhole.

TMax 100 in Rodinal 1:50

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