Bad weather over the weekend tends to result in indoor projects of some sort. No backlog of film to develop or scan, so I had to find something else to do. What about a 4x5 Pinhole camera, might indeed be ready in time for Pinhole day on the 28th of April.
I used a well known recipe really, take a Bjurön plant pot from IKEA (same as for my other 4x5 DIY camera) and smack a 4x5 Graflok compatible back on it and you have the beginnings of a camera. Drill a hole in the other end and cover it with a piece of foil punctured by a pin, and there you have it. That would have taken but an hour or so. But I had to make things a bit more difficult for myself by adding an internal shutter, actuated by a release cable. In fact that took more than a few hours, indeed half the weekend. Worked fine indoors, but when I finally went out to take some test shots it failed. Which meant I had to use the dark slide as a shutter, giving questionable results. Needed to rethink the shutter construction some, and now it works.
Details:
- Sinar 4x5 back, has the advantage of being very compact - and fits the Bjurön plant pot very nicely.
- 118mm focal length, 32mm 135/35mm film equivalent when shot on 4x5
- First pin hole was 0.5mm (f236) - a bit on the big side.
- Current pin hole is 0.4mm (f296)
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| 4x5 Pinhole, shutter open |
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| 4x5 Pinhole. Cambo back. Shutter release cable enters body |
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| Shutter as seen from the rear, slider with opening can be seen protruding on each side |
First test shots on a DAYI 6x12 roll film back, awaiting delivery of some 4x5 film.
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| 6x12 test shot, dark slide as shutter, 0.500mm pinhole |
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| 6x12 test shot, revised shutter and 0.400mm pinhole |
