More Examples of Shooting, Scanning and Processing Pinhole Images

Ghost in the Graveyard This was a self-portrait, exposed for about 4 minutes on a cloudy evening. I stood in the frame for about half the time, producing the suitably ghostly image. Improvements I should have stayed in the frame longer for a bit more detail, and also been more in front of a tombstone so you could see through me, adding to the ghost effect. I had to play with the scanner software brightness settings (under “Advanced”) until I could see both the detail of the tombstones & the ghost I t was hard to lighten the exposure (in Photoshop) enough to see the detail on the tombstones without completely washing out the ghost. Eventually I had to carefully select only the stones and lighten their mid-tones without lightening the ghost.

Fisheye View – The Very Patient Mr. R My student R not only had to pose very still for 3 minutes once, he had to do it again when the first photo paper was found to be already exposed! As you can see above, R’s fingers are quite normal, but the camera setup makes them look like claws! Why? I loaded the paper halfway down the can and bent the edges back toward the top, so the centre was closer to the aperture. This has the effect of stretching out anything at the edges – a “fisheye” effect, good for very wide angles. You can also see that although he sat very still and rested his head on something solid (a good idea), his eye still blinked and moved a bit, causing some blur.

Wide Angle and Motion Blur – Comparing a Digital shot with a Pinhole Shot.
Above: Digital SLR with a wide angle lens – the front wheel and the 2^nd tree are both cut off.	The upper digital shot was taken while the pinhole exposure was being made, from the same position. Although the digital camera had a fairly wide angle lens, the pinhole has a much wider field of view. Why? I loaded the paper halfway down the can, but flat (not bent like the fisheye above). The closer the paper is to the aperture, the wider the field of view. A long can would narrow the field and provide a telephoto type of shot. Also notice how the students sitting are frozen by the fast shutter of the digital camera, but blurred in the 4 minute exposure, because, being human, they move! I left the pinhole as a negative because I like it best that way.
Below: Pinhole exposure from the same spot, paper halway up the can. This gives a very wide angle – you can see the front wheel and the 2^nd tree.