All about non-digital photography, cameras and techniques

Nikon D200 Digital SLR

2006-12-09T09:55:00.000+01:00

I bought a Nikon D200 digital SLR and sold my old Nikon D1X. It's a very nice camera. My "old" flash Nikon SB28DX doesn't work on the D200 so I also bought the SB800 flash. A good combination.

Pinhole cows with an Agfa Click I

2006-08-02T17:28:00.000+02:00

I rebuild an old Agfa Click I camera into a pinhole camera. I removed the plastic lens and placed the pinhole on the outside of the body but behind the original shutter. This camera and the Agfa Clack can be converted easely into pinhole cameras. The Clack has a slightly curved filmplane and a negative size of 6x9 cm. The Click I has a negative size of 6x6 cm.I loaded it with Fuji NPC 160 rollfim and went into the fields on a very hot day for a testdrive.
I found some cowes willing to pose for a few pictures. I placed my camera in the field and let the cows come close.
They are very curious animals....

Exposure time was about 30 seconds on the middle of the day in the full (and hot!!) sun. These were the results:

building a camera with f-stop 295 - part 2

2006-08-01T00:30:00.000+02:00

Just wanted to let you know that I'm actually building it at the moment. I haven't had that much spare time lately, but it's getting there. I'll post some images tomorrow.
It has six pinholes in the front. This way I get a shift and tilt function.
I still haven't decided on the interior of the camera. Should I make a curved filmplane or not? Or make it possible to use a 8x10" filmholder (with an adapter of some kind)?
At least the first trial shots will be simple paper negatives taped on the inside onto the back of the camera.
To be continued...

Book: Camera Obscura by Hans Knuchel

2006-07-26T21:11:00.000+02:00

I ordered this book about pinhole photograhy today:
Camera obscura by Hans Knuchel (Baden: Verlag Lars Muller 1992. 72 pages. ISBN 3-9067700-49-6).
It's a German book. I heard good things about it, but wasn't able to find it for quite some time. Finally, with the help from someone at the pinhole forum (www.f295.org), I found an antique book dealer in Liechtenstein (www.chybulski.com), who could send it to me.

This is the discription of the book:
"Verschiedene Typen von camerae obscurae, mit einem oder mit vielen Löchern, diverse Formen. Zu jedem Typ ein Foto und ein Schema."

Translated:
"Several types of camerae obscurae, with one or more pinholes, in different models. Every model comes with a picture and scematics."

I can't wait to read it....

Bird in the water

2006-07-22T09:39:00.000+02:00

Bird in the water
Originally uploaded by The Toad Men.

I like black&white images, the water, birds, ....
Here they come together.

Pinhole camera with f-stop 1/295

2006-07-18T18:49:00.000+02:00

I'm working on a pinhole camera made out of Afzelia wood. It's going to be a 295 camera:
* negative size = 295 x 295
* focal length = 295 mm
* f-stop = 1/295
* pinhole size = 1,0 mm
* angle of view = 70 degrees.
You can find more information on the f295 pinhole forum.

A good movie (1) "What Dreams May Come"

2006-07-18T00:35:00.000+02:00

This blog isn't going te about photography alone, but what else to write about?
Well, I saw this movie recently: "What dreams may come". It's with Robin Willams and I think it's a very good movie. I'm used to Willams as a comedian, but here he shows (again) he can play other parts as well. It's about life and death, life after death, life in death, in heaven and hell ...
Recommended!!

Building a 4eyes Pinhole Camera (part 3)

2006-07-16T01:32:00.000+02:00

I did get some interesting responses on the f295.org forum about my ideas for the 4eyes pincam.
Click here to read the thread on the f295.org forum.

Reading these comments, I did get an other idea: what if I make the focal length of each pinhole different? Four simultanious shots varying from wide angle to tele? A bit more trouble to build, but it could give a nice image??
The same camera but with different focal lengths could look like this drawing (below). I need to calculate how tall it can be before I get the "lens" with the bigger focal length on the image from the smaller focal length. Maybe if I made the bigger "lens" like a piramide with the top only 30 x 30 mm instead of the square 100 x 100 mm.
I should also not forget to give it extra exposure. With a longer focal length the f-number gets bigger and so will the required shutter speed. But this can easily be calculated.
To be continued.....

Building a 4eyes pinhole camera (part 2)

2006-07-15T18:08:00.000+02:00

I think I'll make an internal divider, that I can remove. I'll make the front panel (with the pinhole(s) in it) removable also. This way I can use it as a 4eyes or even a 9eyes camera. This is a drawing of what the devider would look like for the 4eyes pincam (probably).

Building a 4eyes pinhole camera (part 1)

2006-07-15T11:02:00.000+02:00

I'm thinking about building a wooden large format pinhole camera with 4 pinholes. Before I start, I would like to ask you all for help/tips/plans/experiences with these kinds of designs. I can make things out of wood, but metal works I don't know nothing about.
This is the first design drawing. The dimensions of the camera will be: 410 x 410 x 70 mm, pinhole size = 0.35 and the angle of view will be about 90 degrees (per image). This will give a f-number of 200. I need to work out the details of the interior of the camera next.

These are issues I'm thinking about:
* Can I make a simple shutter meganism to operate 4 shutters at the same time?
* Should I make a division inside (like a cross) to avoid the 4 images to overlap?
* I want to use a sheet of photographic paper so it will be a oneshot camera.
* Has anyone some spare parts I could use (I'm not a metal worker)? I'll pay for the costs.
* What am I thinking off???

Any thoughts are welcome!! Here is the first drawing:

Pinhole photography in B&W photography magazine

2006-07-15T00:46:00.000+02:00

"Black & White Photography" is a very good magazine for non-digital, monochrome photographers. No endless overviews of digital cameras but real stories of photographers, help on traditional an digital printing of monochrome images, special techniques, darkroom stuff, old cameras, etc., etc. This issue is a special on pinhole photography (issue 61, July 2006). I can recommend this magazine.
For more details, click here.

My wedding day

2006-07-14T12:00:00.000+02:00

Today is the 14th anniversary of our wedding day. And I still love her!!
We met for the first time in Maastricht on the 5th of January, 1988.
Now we have two lovely daughters (6 1/2 and 9 years old).

Mamiya 6x7 back on a Mamiya 23 body

2006-07-13T19:39:00.000+02:00

Bill Keeler from New Mexico, USA is sending me a Mamiya 6x7 filmback and the frame of a Mamiya 23 body. It should arrive end of August.
I'm gonna make a pinhole camera out of it. I'll post a photo documentary of my tinkering on this blog and on the www.f295.org pinhole forum.
Below you'll find a picture of what this camera must have looked like in better days.
To be continued in about two months.....

to be ...

2006-07-12T23:53:00.000+02:00

"It's better to be who you are, before you become who you want to be"

(from: The Magic Flute)

My first pinhole image ever

2006-07-11T12:05:00.000+02:00

This is the first pinhole image I made in 2001:I had build a wooden pinhole camera and loaded it with photographic paper. Exposure 30 seconds. The camera is made of Afzelia wood (from Africa), size 11 x 11 x 11 cm. The negative size is 10 x 10 cm. The pinhole was made out a soda can (size 0,3 mm). I had a lot of fun building it. And I was very pleased that my first test shot (picture above) was a success. The beginning of a pinhole building carreer??

"Comics are for all Ages" (reading for 30 years now ...)

2006-07-11T10:00:00.001+02:00

I like to read comic books. I read my first comic book back in 1976 when I was nine years old. I traded some books for a stack of Batman comics with a friend. I was hooked right away. However, in those years comic books were hard to get in The Netherlands. Only a few American comics were translated and published. Finally, I found a small store that could order the Batman comics in Dutch.

About six years later other comic books were translated and published like The X-Men and Spiderman. At that time a real comic book store opened in my town. Now it was possible to get my hands on the original American comic books also!

I found a nice comic bookstore in Amsterdam (called: Wonderland) in 1985. They sold a lot of back issues and my collection started to grow.

In 1987 I discovered www.milehighcomics.com and started ordering my comics in the USA. My first titles were: Batman, Daredevil, Detective Comics and Swamp Thing. I'm still using their services after 19 years.

I've read and collected quite a lot comics over the last 30 years. Some of my favourite artists are: Jim Steranko, Steve Ditko, John Byrne, Jim Aparo, Barry Windsor-Smith, Mike Kaluta, Charless Vess, P. Craig Russel, Marshall Rogers, Bill Sienkewietz, Berni Wrightson, John J. Muth, Frank Miller, George Pratt and George Perez.

This image is the cover of Amazing Spiderman #50. This was one of the first silver age comics I got. I like this cover very much (still). Some of my oldest comic books are: Batman #6 (1941), Detective Comics #84 (1944), Amazing Spiderman #5 (1963), The Avengers #2 (1963) and Tales to Astonish #41 (1962).

I'm not very active as a collector anymore, but I still read comic books weekly. I'm thinking of selling parts of my collection to clear some space. Lately, I started reading hardcovers collecting older comics. I just finished the hardcover collecting Jim Starlin's Dreadstar #1-12. A great story it was!!

As a sticker once said: "Comics are for all Ages".

Quoting Ansel Adams ....

2006-07-09T20:02:00.000+02:00

I like to read books about photography. Old ones and new ones. I also read the books of Ansel Adams (The camera, The negative and The Print). He is a nice writer and these books are fun to read. One qoute really appealed to me, that much that I made it my motto in photography:
"... avoiding the common illusion that creative work depends on equipment alone ...".

This applies on my vision on photography. And maybe that's also why I like pinhole photography this much. Just a simple black box with a tiny hole and some light sensitive material.... and using mu hat as a shutter.

Don't get me wrong, I also like to use digital cameras like my Nikon D1X. But sometimes it's nice to retreat from the francy of the world around me; only contemplating about how I want to make just one picture.
Or how I'm gonna build a wooden camera for a pinhole panorama or .... It's almost like meditating. It helps me clearing my mind. I can sit a whole day in a field with a 4x5" camera, shoot only 2 images and be very happy. Just enjoying the scenery and looking for that one spot I want to make my picture.

Pinhole photography also brings you back to the basics of photograhy. It even makes me a better photographer using "real" cameras and lenses.

But mostly, it helps me to fulfill my other motto: "have fun and catch that lightbeam".

Bert from Holland

pinhole forum at www.f295.org

2006-07-08T17:25:00.000+02:00

There is a great forum for pinhole photography: www.f295.org. A very nice group of people helping each other out with problems, showing their work and just having fun talking about it. Check it out!

I'm a blogger now ?!

2006-07-07T18:20:00.000+02:00

Hello,
Welcome to my world of blogging. Don't know where this is going to lead me. I'll just go and see...
Well, my name is Bert and I live in The Netherlands, Europe. I'm going to use this blog to register my thoughts on non-digital photography and anything else I can think off.
Feel free to comment.

Bert from Holland
"have fun and catch that lightbeam"

("The Toad Men" in The Incredible Hulk #2 (1962), presenting the first green skinned Hulk, art by Kirby & Ditko)