The Plastic Lens ~ Words » pinhole

Cameron — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:24:45 +0000

Pinhole Day Coming to a World Near You Soon

Cameron — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 13:37:24 +0000

t’s been a while since i updated the words part of the site, sorry. Things have been a bit busy & weird around here (something not that unusual) but I hope to be back to updating the site with interesting new material, cameras, reviews (including some cool Superheadz cameras) and videos of…stuff (It’s a very useful word, stuff)

In the meantime, this is an older video I made, the last of three from the 2008 Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. Considering the 2009 WPPD is in less than 2 months away (Sunday April 26th people) I thought it was about time I posted this one! You can view the first two WPPD vids here and here. I have been considering making a new pinhole camera for this year but am not sure if I’ll have the time, as I have a few things on my plate (good things). Time will tell anyway.

I’m hoping you’ll notice an improved quality to the next videos (tutorials and reviews) that I upload to the site because I have invested in a different camera with higher video resolution, so that may make a difference!

A Pinhole Rose (Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day part 3) from artpunk on Vimeo.

Pinhole Rose in the Paper

Cameron — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:16:06 +0000

esterday (November 12th) my pinhole rose photo was published in the extratech section of the Herald Sun newspaper in Melbourne. It’s good to see that in these days of megapixel digital photography the origins of photography and image making (the Camera Obscura) still get some mention (even if it is under the title ‘strange but true‘ *lol*) The article was printed in B & W unfortunately, as the whole layout and accompanying images looked great in colour, hats of to the editor Richard and graphic artist involved – My thanks to Richard Conrad (the technical editor of the paper) for providing the colour pdf of the article for my reference – note that my image and accompanying review of World Pinhole Photography Day is just a small section of the whole article which encompassed a broad spectrum of photography related subjects.

Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day Part 2

Cameron — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:49:02 +0000

Part two isn’t half as entertaining as part one, primarily because it only has boring old me in it and not the kids. This was later in the afternoon, after we had been to the park and I had picked up my Holgamods Pinhole slide to do some still life photography of tomatoes. Shown is the technique of ‘painting with light’ – using a torch to selectively illuminate areas of the subject matter and transfers being made from the type 89 Polaroid packfilm. I hope you don’t find it too boring.

World Wide Pinhole Photography Day (part two) from artpunk on Vimeo.

Holga-Diana + Hybrid Experiment

Cameron — Sat, 03 May 2008 02:05:58 +0000

Well, the day after WPPD (worldwide pinhole photography day) Randy Smith’s original Pinholga camera prototype arrived in the post, and a nice piece of Holga modification it is too! Having the pinhole plate secured by a screw in filter holder (Kodak Series V type known to Diana users who like to use filters on their plastic lenses) got me thinking I might be able to use this camera for more than just pinhole shots. The great thing about the new Diana + series of cameras is that the front element of their plastic lens (the actusl lens/aperture part) is removable to allow you to use different lenses (wide angle etc). With this in mind I removed the 75mm (standard Diana + lens) from my Diana + camera and checked it’s compatibility with the filter ring. It was a snug fit! Then I had to do was tape some small light leaks inside the camera that only became a problem when I took the pinhole plate out, but that left me with the fact I had no working aperture plate, so I then made a very makeshift aperture plate with part of an old polaroid pack-film casing and tin-snips and a drill (for the aperture) – it was not a pretty job, but would suffice to do some test Holga-Diana hybrid shots.
The included images in this post show some of the process of the hybridization – click on the thumbnails to bring them up and scroll through all of them.
I’ve shot one roll through the camera in pinhole mode (with rather disappointing results I’m afraid) and used two of the frames on the roll with the Diana + lens on and was very pleased with those results (shown here). There’s more vignetting than I’m used to, even with the Holga, but perhaps using a true square 16 shot mask would address that issue. As for the pinhole shots, I’m going to have to modify the camera some more as the images get masked/cropped quite a bit at the edges by the actual square aperture at the shutter when shooting pinhole. I need to move the pinhole much closer to the actual shutter mechanism aperture (see the Holga Diana Hybrid step #2 image), but I’ll do that at a later stage…

Pinhole Photography Family Fun [WPPD Part 1]

Cameron — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 04:19:39 +0000

April 27th 2008 was Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day (in case you hadn’t gotten the hint after me banging on about it for a while now)
We walked up the street in the afternoon, it was chilly, cloudy, threatening to rain but with short (very short) moments of sunshine. The whole family (including the dog) helped me to participate in this years pinhole photography day with much hilarity ensuing.
This is the first in a two (or perhaps three) part video documentation of the day. The lovely backing music is an edit of “The Simple Truth” by tetragrammaton productions and was found at opsound

Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day (part 1) from artpunk on Vimeo.

Pinhole Cameras are GO!

Cameron — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 12:30:09 +0000

Well, it is Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day tomorrow (a couple of hours time for me, but I will get some sleep before the fun)
I will probably use my nice wooden Zero Image pinhole camera which is already loaded with film, as well as my Holga pinhole camera and my homemade/modified Polaroid pinhole camera. Check out the official site for more details and galleries of past pinhole days and when your calendar clocks over to the 27th, start pinholing!
If you haven’t seen what I did in the last hours of this annual event last year this video is good for a giggle. If you want to make a pinhole camera at the last minute, follow the link above on my D.I.Y. Polaroid modification – it’s about making a pinhole camera from an old Polaroid camera body, to take ‘instant’ pinhole shots, but the general principles are the same for any pinhole camera, a light-tight box with a very tiny aperture and some film. The resources page at the official Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day site has some great links with more tutorials on How To Make a Pinhole Camera amongst other handy information. Have fun! Go forth and pinhole!

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.

To Work!

Cameron — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 06:41:00 +0000

OK! Seeing as I lost most of my old posts it is time to start again and repost the more intelligible or entertaining ones (at least as I see them) – also I can say thank heavens for rss feeds, in this case bloglines. Being as narcissistic as all get out, I had this blog in my bloglines feed and wonder of wonders, most of my posts are all still there ready to cut and past when I get the time. I will have to adjust the dates to reflect their actual post dates, but thankfully WordPress allows that too.
Unfortunately the comments aren’t preserved, so sorry and thank you to those who have taken the time to comment on my ramblings! I’ll also have to rebuild my blogroll – if I did link to you on the sidebar in the past, but have still managed not to get to listing you again before the end of the season say, please let me know!

Onto business. I won’t cut and paste this old entry, but post it anew as it is coming up to Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day!! so this is relevant (again) Yes! April 27, 2008 is Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day kids! Check out the official site for more details and galleries of past pinhole days. Here is a short, silly video of what I got up to last year on pinhole day after building my own Pinhole camera with a polaroid back (tutorial video will be reposted soon). This is posted for amusement only, not much edification here!

3 Minutes of Apple from artpunk on Vimeo.