A 3D printed negative carrier

It's nice to be able to take advantage of it when a friend buys a 3D printer and is looking everywhere for an excuse to make something.

Giles La Rock recently acquired one and was giving away things like multiple roll film canisters for 120 film. He has even printed a 6x12cm format camera (which uses a lens). 

We had a casual conversation about applications for 3D printing. I have no interest in 3D-printed pinhole cameras, mainly because they're bigger and bulkier than my cardboard ones - and because it creeps me out a little to use a pinhole camera I haven't made. One idea we discussed was a film carrier for scanning with a digital camera. The ones I've used are very nicely made and convenient to use, but cost $300 for something that doesn't seem that complicated.

Several days later, I was thinking about the last step of turning a negative into a positive in workshops. I've used cardboard film holders before, but they require moving each frame individually between captures and sometimes a little taping. I idly searched Thingiverse and immediately found exactly what I was looking for. 

I sent the link to Giles and he showed up at my exhibit during the gallery walk with all the parts in a zip lock bag. Nice to get presents at an opening.

He didn't have the prescribed magnets needed to finish it. I went to buy some. They're all made in China!! Available only in lots of hundreds, with shipping more than the price, arrival times weeks away. Then after scrolling down the page a while, there was a listing from Amazon for 80 with free 2-day shipping. I'm sure Giles can find a use for the ones I don't need.

It's best to use it with an uncut roll of film. It has to be past the mask to roll properly. It will hold a cut edge right at the end of the opening, but you have to open it and move it into the slot to get it to go farther.

Eight #61 O-rings drive the film more effectively than I expected.

It worked very well. My only quibble is that it's very light and has to be realigned all the time. I could probably attach it to the light pad with rubber bands or tape to keep it still. 

Savvy readers might have noticed that in that top picture, that's a 1970s 55mm Micro-Nikkor with the "rabbit ears" still on it that's been modified for "AI," which stood for auto-indexing back then. So it's Automatic nothing. The camera is a Nikon D750, which is just before they included inverting a negative as an effect. With this lens, LIVE on the LED panel won't work properly, so focusing has to be done with the viewfinder. I'm not much good at judging a negative, but it does index with the meter, so it's stopped down as far as it goes for depth-of-field with the meter on average. The image inverted in Photoshop is always brighter than I expect, but the histogram shows there's lots of data from the RAW format image file and can easily be spread back to full range with Levels (and burning and dodging naturally). By the way, couldn't Adobe make inverting a negative an option of that feature-rich RAW import function?

The test roll was Kentmere 400, overexposed most of the time.

My normal route to the lake passes an old factory, half of which has been converted into apartments. The half I go past has been a neglected eyesore, but it looks like they trimmed the weeds and washed the walls recently. 

Bricked up passages into what must have been more of the building.

Another closed opening with some reinforcing iron in the wall.




Windows closed in by metal paneling.

This one looks like it was glass blocks that have been painted over.

The theme this month for the Fox Valley Photography Group is Shapes.

Looking down Nevada Avenue toward the lake.

The sky over the Yacht Club breakwater.

The corner of the City Center courtyard.  This one looks like the scanning camera might have been out of focus, but I can see the grain, and I remember whacking the pinhole camera closing the shutter.

The Gibson Social Club with the Mosque in the misty background.

The entrance to the second floor of an iconic Oshkosh landmark, The Webster Block.

The meter-wide "fairy passage" with a mural covering one side between two mid-century single-story stores.

Capturing negatives with a digital SLR is notably much faster than using a flatbed scanner. The resolution is about the same as I use with the scanner (which could go much higher). The quality of the images seems a little different in a way that I can't quite put my finger on, but if I could adjust the camera with an inverted image, that probably would change. There seemed to be much less issues with dust, but that could be just the luck of what the humidity was when the negatives were drying.

My scanner is located in a convenient, comfortable space so I'm not sure it would be worth it to set up for DSLR capture every time, but if I get to do another workshop where I have to provide for digital capture of negatives, this is really going to make things quicker and easier. Thanks a lot, Giles.

The EyePA 30 has .23mm pinholes on the axis and 8mm above it, 30mm from a 6x6cm frame. The Kentmere 400 was semi-stand developed in Rodinal 1:100.

Hmmm, there are lots of plans for desktop tripods on Thingiverse.

Happy Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day this weekend.

A Diverse and Inclusive Camera

One sunny day, we had to go to Appleton, where they had the faucet we wanted in stock. Since I was going to be involved in a few public events soon, I again chose HandiCam to go along with its diverse and inclusive design, filled with more of that blandly named Kodak Color Print Film 400.

We had lunch at Fratello's for the views of the raging river and giant sunbeams.

They do put in some effort to make it nice.

My sandwich was way too big, even with my large hands. I learned how to deal with it using a knife and fork on YouTube.

One of the secrets to a successful camera-making workshop is for me to make a bunch of the parts ahead of time. Shop Yoga ya' know. I'm always impressed at how famed makers like Adam Savage, NerdForge, and Christine McConnell will spend days on repetitive, detailed work to create parts for their projects.

Putting them to use in Madtown. It looks like this was while we were making the fronts. I see several of the unfolded backs on the table.

Ralph Russo's proximity to that car is testimony to the wide angle of the cameras we made. I'm sure the whole front is in the frame. (Wish I got to see some of their pictures.)

The following Saturday, the brand-new Appleton Public Library hosted an after-hours PhotoWalk with Photo Opp. I was primarily occupied with medium format but always take a Populist along. 

 Indoors, again.

Waiting for the all-clear with plenty of hardware on display.

Graham and the librarian were particularly dynamic in the preamble.

Responding to a solicitation of questions, I asked where the 770's were. It took him a second but he recognized the call number and directed me to the photography books.

Essential tools on the Children's Library Desk.

Collaborative work.

Every use I can think of for the collections in these under-counter bins sounds chaotic.

A librarian remained on duty at the Reference Desk for our inquiries. We conversed about trends in the design of children's libraries that may have influenced them and not just to keep her pointed in one direction.

I went to Polk Library to finish the medium format roll from the PhotoWalk. The girl staffing this giveaway table was a representative of the distributor and not a student organization. Is it a coincidence that the tablecloth matches the school colors?

The Pencil of Nature on the New Nonfiction shelf.

This was exposed while I futzed with The Unseen Library and took a photograph of Ben and Hughie for social media with a lens. The red/cyan glasses really make Franklin look like a sly joker.

I went early for my TV interview to make sure everything was straight and level in the exhibit and read Balzac on my phone while I waited.

About the first half of the interview. It's easy to get me to go on and on about pinhole photography, and I am still surprised she got that edited for a broadcast in six hours.

I went down to Opera Square for what was an all-too-familiar gathering for someone who attended college in the late sixties. I'm not sure if a cardboard camera is much of a protest sign. I wish we could peacefully march around Senator Johnson's and the Republican Party offices. They might fear a sudden patriotic love fest.

I always thought the Yippie movement had a great sense of humor, but the current group can really come up with some great lines.

The gala event. With a few visitors, we had stopped looking at the anaglyphs on the monitor, then, after conversing for minutes, realized we still had on the red/cyan glasses. I had promoted the gallery walk as an opportunity to get pictures of that sort of thing, but nobody did.

The evening sunbeam caught me by surprise.

The rest of this post will deal with our Amaryllis. It is a veteran of at least several years and has been my model several times. Amaryllises have a special place in the history of pinhole photography. In 2004, minutes after receiving Tom Persinger's email that he had resurrected the Pinhole Visions forum as f295, I posted this triptych as the first entry on that historic, now completely departed forum.

 Playing the Telecaster with the first bloom behind me.

After the TV show interview, I waited for some egg rolls for lunch and forgot to wind the film. Later, I captured the amaryllis with two blossoms opened. I would have thought this double exposure was a street shot through a window if I didn’t know otherwise. 

A close-up of one of the soon-to-be blossoms.  A strange graphic composition.

All four blooms from above.

Really sticking it in there.

Tricky to get two flowers in the picture that are facing ninety degrees away from each other.

I have to be honest and tell you my counting-eight-clicks skills seem to have gotten inaccurate and several of these are severe crops of overlapping negatives.

The first to open now showing its darker magenta age.

Originally intended to be another foursome, cropped not because of overlapping but because of the end of the film.

HandiCam has a hand-drilled .17mm pinhole 24mm from a 24x36mm frame. The film was developed in a Cinestill Quart Powder C41 kit.