The Plastic Lens ~ Words » how-to

More D.I.Y. Pinhole Fun!

Cameron — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:36:47 +0000

For the 2010 World Pinhole Photography Day, I decided to make a new pinhole camera, similar to the pinhole blender cameras that merge several pinhole images onto one long exposure.
In 2007 at the Daylesford Foto Biennale, I first saw some amazing pinhole images taken by an Australian photographer Steph Tout – Steph Tout Photography
Again in 2009, this time at the Ballarat International Foto Biennale, I saw more of her work and was inspired again. Her beautiful images are all captured on a home made pinhole camera, similar to the one I have constructed here. Since 2007 I had plans to make a similar camera to the one Steph Tout had, but it has taken until this year to finally get around to it. Mine is my first try and I am still ironing out some issues. note: the name ‘pinhole blender’ belongs to the excellent commercial products you can buy here: pinholeblender.com

*time-lapse captured on my iPhone
*music by Orb Gettarr – Orb Gettar at OPSOUND

Scanning For Sprockets [Revisited]

Cameron — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:16:14 +0000

A while back I tried to explain how to get sprockets holes from your toy camera negatives scanned to a digital file correctly. My text and images where not entirely the best method to explain it so now finally I have produced a long overdue tutorial on how to use your scanner software to scan in 35mm negative film to include the sprocket holes. This is relevant when you are using toy cameras like the blackbird,fly or have a Holga or Diana modified to take 35mm film (or if you have a 35mm back to fit these cameras) for example.
I’m using a Canoscan 8400f to scan my negatives, but hopefully there will be some common points of reference if you are using a different scanner and/or different software. *note: You may be able to see what I’m doing better by going to the full screen view.

Scanning for Sprockets

Cameron — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:57:48 +0000

So you’ve got yourself a new BBF, or you’ve loaded 35mm into your Medium Format Toy Camera after I showed you how (or not, *heh*) or you may have bought a 35mm back for your Diana + camera or for your Holga. You have finished your first roll of film that you opted (in the case of BBF or dedicated 35mm back) to use in a way that will expose the image over the sprockets, and of course now you would like to see those cool sprocket holes in your resultant photos! – But SHOCK, Horror, Much Gnashing of Teeth! To your dismay the prints you pick up from the lab don’t show your sexy sprockets! Unfortunately most labs just aren’t geared up for those kind of exposures, they have set frame sizes for their prints and their machines won’t recognise non-standard frame sizes (the definition of which includes the full negative width ‘sprocket look’). They could probably find a work around to do it, but it would take time and effort, which of course equates to money in business. I get my film developed only (no prints) which is less expensive than develop and print. I just scan all my negatives these days, printing those I like. I take so many non-standard photographic shots such as panoramic, or exposures all the way to the film edge (sprockets) or square format (which isn’t really that non standard but try telling any modern lab that!) it is far easier for me to do this than put up with prints that don’t really reflect what I shot in the first place! So, you will need to scan your own negatives in, on a scanner capable of taking negatives. Remember, to get the sprockets in your scan, you will need a scanner that scans outside of the usual 35mm margins, which usually means one that can scan medium format film. There are many different scanners that will scan medium format negatives. Notably Canon & Epson make good models like the Canon 8800f, the Epson v500, v700 or if you look at the second hand market there are superseded models that will scan negatives well for a cheaper price.but it doesn’t stop there!

It can be a tricky thing scanning in the sprocket holes. Most scanners I know of have a special mask, or cartridge like thang that you have to place your cut negatives in. Most likely these were not designed for the cool sprocket effects you can get with the bbf, so these masks often will cover the sprockets area.

One user has modified his 35mm negative mask (on his Canoscan 8400F – same as mine) as seen here to enable it to scan in the sprockets, but I didn’t want to physically modify my mask, so used the 120 mask and placed the negatives in that, stopping the negative from touching the flatbed by using rubber bands across the body of the mask to hold the negative above the surface of the glass. Or if you like you can get out the hobby knife and stiff cardboard and fashion your own mask like this one I made (as illustrated) …

But wait! There’s even more!! It still doesn’t end there!

If you select the whole area of the negative including the sprockets to scan, those extra black areas can drive the scanners ‘auto’ settings a bit crazy! I know they do with mine…

I have a Canoscan 8400F and I have to ‘trick’ it into not auto-adjusting the levels to some weird blue cast by (in preview mode) selecting an area on my negative just inside the sprocket holes (see example image). Once that is done I use the ‘set’ option on the Canoscan 8400f to set tonal values for the selected area, the tones will stay the same when you re-size the selection area…. then you can readjust your selection margins for scanning to include the sprocket holes and scan. These particular options when using the Canoscan software are only available in the advanced mode of the scanner. I hope (if you have a scanner other than the Canon model referred to here) these options translate to whatever scanner/software combination you are using.

Note – You have to ‘set’ again after any ‘reset’ however, as the scanner will reset anytime you move your selection boundaries unless you specifically set it. Does that make sense?

**UPDATE! Finally (and with the help of the new Quicktime X screen recording capabilities) I have made a video tutorial on using the scanner interface to scan in your sprockets (and also avoid that weird blueness that can afflict your scanned negatives)

Blackbird,fly – Loading Film

Cameron — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:40:19 +0000

fter a few enquiries and the fact that I have been meaning to put together and upload this for a while but just never got around to it, here is an otherwise boring (insomniacs if you need a cure look here) visual tutorial on how to load film into your BBF (blackbird,fly) camera, I hope it is of use to someone out there.
As I said, I have been planning on uploading a guide to loading film into the blackbird,fly camera for a while, but life (and having fun taking photos!) sort of distracted me. The reason I initially planned to do this has not changed; when I first got the prototype version of the camera I was initially very unsure if I was actually loading film into it correctly – and this is someone who is used to loading film into cameras, so I could only imagine how approaching the job would be for people not as familiar with film photography!

The trick with loading film into the bbf is patience and practice. When I first got the camera I found it quite fiddly as my fingers are fat sausages in relation to the fine workings of the camera, so I felt quite clumsy (which I am anyway) but even I got there in the end.
(loading film into a Horizon panoramic camera is far more of a challenge IMHO)

Please note – if you find that you are winding the film on after loading and the film advance knob does not ‘lock’ in place then this means the film leader has not properly engaged in the take up spool and you will need to open the back and try again.
(After each exposure the film will advance a certain amount and then the film advance knob will stop winding on, indicating that the camera is ready for photography and the shutter needs to be released before the wind on knob will advance again)

Loading Film Into the BBF from artpunk on Vimeo.

35mm Back for the Diana +

Cameron — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 00:18:36 +0000

received my last order from the Lomographic Society on Friday; a 35mm back for the Diana + cameras, with most of the English instructions missing due to a misprint. I had also ordered a Diana + Edelweiss edition that was broken (lens assembly completely detached from the body, dangling by the wires for the flash) before I even got it out of it’s box. I will be interested to see how the LSI address my concerns, but I have been feeling that the business side of the lomography community/family has changed from being customer focussed to being totally profit driven now, with a good deal of cynicism thrown in for good measure. A few of my friends and online contacts would argue this has been the case for a while but I have held out until recently, believing (hoping) they still cared more about analog photography and the people still practicing it than just the money…
Oh well. Because my manual had missing information, I had to ask online for the missing pages (thanks cannibal.animal) as I didn’t want to bust anything when fitting the 35mm back. I thought some people might appreciate a visual walkthrough of the process of fitting the back to the Diana + camera. Kai’s ‘out of the box’ review of the 35mm kit which I mention in the video can be found here.

Mounting the 35mm Diana + back from artpunk on Vimeo.

Developing In The Park

Cameron — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:51:47 +0000

Last Sunday the Melbourne Silver Mine Inc and Melbourne Flickr group held a meet at Albert Park Lake where some of the more experienced members demonstrated how easy it was to develop your own B & W film with a few chemicals and fairly simple equipment. They started by loading exposed B & W film onto a reel to be placed in a developing tank. This was done in a light-proof bag. Then the developing solution was added to the tank and the tank was gently agitated at regular intervals to get proper coverage of solution over the film. Once the prescribed time for development was up (in this case 13min with Rodinal, but this varies with different developers and dilution etc.) the developer was poured out and the film rinsed, still in the tank with tap water a few times to remove any residual developer. Then fixer was added and the gentle, regular agitation process was repeated, this time for a shorter time. After that, the fixer was poured out, the top of the tank was removed and the film was rinsed in water a few times again. What we had then was a fully developed & fixed negative, just like one you would get from a lab. (note that I thought I had some images of the chemical jiggery in the development tank, but I didn’t. I shouldn’t have drunk that wine Ziz kindly offered me) The guys even went further to make a viable contact print cleverly using a light box and photographic paper. It was so easy even I managed to do it! I exposed a roll of Kodak Tri X 400 that afternoon and even managed to produce recognisable images after developing the film myself (with help and guidance from Rhys, Rob and Zaeem from the Silvermine). Thanks Guys!

Rob loading film in the Dark Bag

Rhys looking at the developed negative

Developing a Contact Print

The Final Contact Print

Of Diana + Lenses

Cameron — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 05:38:43 +0000

A friend of mine on flicker sent me a message, quite concerned that she had stuffed up her Diana + camera by putting on one of it’s accessory lenses the wrong way. She had put her fisheye lens on without aligning the white dots and was also finding it quite stiff when trying to remove the lens. She eventually did remove the lens, but it must have been a bit fragile as it fell into a few pieces.
Normally putting accessory lenses onto a Diana + camera just involves getting the lens in the right position and giving a clockwise turn to secure it. You do the reverse to remove the lens. On initial usage the lens can be quite firmly engaged and you do need to use a bit of a firm twist to remove it, but this action usually loosens up a bit with repeated use and time. If you mis-align the lens, it won’t break your camera, but you will find the distance settings aren’t positioned where you expect them on the barrel. The alignment dots are for ergonomic reasons more than anything, so you can get to the distance adjustments easily.

Dealing with Diana + Lenses from artpunk on Vimeo.

Making A Polaroid Pinhole Camera

Cameron — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:33:34 +0000

This little video was made with Phil in mind, as he expressed in interest in how to do this (he actually offered to bear my children for this info, but personally, however tempting, I dont think it would work!) If anyone else can glean some useful hints from it (and can be patient enough to sit through it listening to the rather boring droning on of my voice) then I will be happy!
*Note, this tutorial was originally uploaded to the site on May the 1st 2007, and subsequently ‘lost’ in the great update to WP 2.5 disaster of last week, but with Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day coming up on the 27th of April this year, I thought I would post it as “new” in anticipation that some people who might be interested in this sort of fun may not have seen it and hopefully, find it useful!

Making a Polaroid Pinhole Camera from artpunk on Vimeo.

35mm Film In Your Toy Camera

Cameron — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:41:28 +0000

Here is a fairly straight forward tutorial video showing how to simply adapt a toy camera (a Diana + in this case) that usually takes 120 (medium format) film to take 35mm film. Even though I’m using 35mm in my Diana + here, this should be achievable in just about any medium format toy camera you might have. Why do it? Because you can and because you get some cool image to the film edge looks! addit: (see some resultant photos from the first roll).
To work out how far you need to advance the film there is a handy guide at photon detector – remember if you have the 4×4 mask in your Diana + the turns will be for the Diana, Agfa Isoly guide. Without the mask (i.e. with 6 x6 exposures) work off the principle that you will need to advance a little bit more between frames. As the film is wound on you need to turn the advance a little bit less each time as the film bulks up on the take up spool. * Please note that my estimation of 3/4 to 1 full turn as stated in the video is inaccurate and will result in overlap – with a traditional Diana and a Diana + with the 4 x 4 mask in work on 1.1 turns at the beginning of the roll reducing this to approx 0.8 turns towards the end of the roll. In a Diana + without any mask (ie 6 x 6 exposures) work on 1.6 turns going down to 1 turn. Also, I needed to tape the leader of the 35mm film onto the take up spool, something not obvious or mentioned in this video (sorry). Have fun!

35mm Film In Your Toy Camera from artpunk on Vimeo.