Finney Pinhole Body Cap

[stevo4]

Hey There!

Has anyone played around with the Finney Field Camera's Pinhole Body Caps? Yes, you too can convert your D70 into one of the most expensive pinhole cameras in the world. hee hee

I got mine recently here in LA but haven't really experimented with it yet. I'd love to see some pictures if anyone has any to share...

Thanks,

Stevo

 

[stevo4]

Not one response? Has no one tried the pinhole body cap? Or is my subject heading to lame?

stevo

Hey There!

Has anyone played around with the Finney Field Camera's Pinhole
Body Caps? Yes, you too can convert your D70 into one of the most
expensive pinhole cameras in the world. hee hee

I got mine recently here in LA but haven't really experimented with
it yet. I'd love to see some pictures if anyone has any to share...

Thanks,

Stevo

 

[Mike Miltenberger]

How would something like this work?

The autofocus wouldn't work, but I guess it won't be critical as the f-stop will be f128 (?) or even smaller??

How do you operate the camera with a body-cap pinhole? Is it just experimentation with shutter speed and ISO until you get a good exposure?

I've wanted to try this with my 35mm, but I don't have an extra body cap : ( and I never seem to think of it when I'm in a flea market or used camera store.

stevo

Hey There!

Has anyone played around with the Finney Field Camera's Pinhole
Body Caps? Yes, you too can convert your D70 into one of the most
expensive pinhole cameras in the world. hee hee

I got mine recently here in LA but haven't really experimented with
it yet. I'd love to see some pictures if anyone has any to share...

Thanks,

Stevo

 

[thomas1973]

I've been thiniking about converting my D70's body cap to a pinhole lens, but haven't gotten around to it yet. How much are these pinhole caps from Finney Field?

I'd love to see some pinhole shots, so why don't you put it on your D70, fire off some shots, and get back to us Looking forward to the pics!

Thomas.

 

[stevo4]

While i try and fool around with this and get something worth posting, meanwhile, i'll post a link to a handy pinhole site (which also has a link to the Finney caps).

http://www.mrpinhole.com/

As for the cap i have, You use the camera in Manual mode. The cap is drilled for f180 @ 50mm. The Pinhole Diameter is .011"

On the back of the packaging is a suggested starting exposure guide for outdoor sun.

Just with playing around a bit i find the cap very well designed (they add a piece of metal to the back of the cap, rather than drill just the plastic).

I do find the images to be a little soft. (Maybe thats because im so used to the sharpness of the Nikon product!).

A lot of experimentation will be needed to find the perfect balance. Fun to come.

Stevo

P.S. Oh, and the cost was around $29.99 US

Hey There!

Has anyone played around with the Finney Field Camera's Pinhole
Body Caps? Yes, you too can convert your D70 into one of the most
expensive pinhole cameras in the world. hee hee

I got mine recently here in LA but haven't really experimented with
it yet. I'd love to see some pictures if anyone has any to share...

Thanks,

Stevo

 

[Gary Filkins115013]

Hey There!

Has anyone played around with the Finney Field Camera's Pinhole
Body Caps? Yes, you too can convert your D70 into one of the most
expensive pinhole cameras in the world. hee hee

The Finney cap? No ... but I have played with both home-made and purchased pinholes on my D70.

The homemade were simply (and literally) pinholes punched in .002 thick steel shim. The pinhole I purchased came from Lenox Laser and measures .3 mm in diameter. That works out to just over .0118 inches for a presumed focal length of just over 45mm. All pinholes were attached to standard Nikon-F body caps purchased from my local camera store for about $5 US.

Below you'll find two photos -- the first was taken with a Nikkor 50mm 1.8 lens to get both framing and shutter speed values ( 1/30 sec @ F22) and the second was taken with the Lenox Laser pinhole using 40 times the shutter speed given for the other shot -- which works out to 1.3 seconds.





I don't recall if the pinhole were attached to the inside or outside of the cap and haven't done any more experiments with it lately. You can see the general capabilities of it in terms of sharpness and DOF but the day was overcast and drizzly and the sky was a dull gray so it's hardly the best possible subject matter.

Here are a couple of links to places that have much more pinhole information (and some downloadable calculators for exposure and focal length with various size pinholes).

Lenox Laser: http://www.lenoxlaser.com/

Guillermo Penate - Pinholes: http://members.rogers.com/penate/

MrPinhole: http://www.mrpinhole.com/

Pinhole Exposure Chart at Calumet Photo: http://www.calumetphoto.com/ctl?PAGE=Controller&ac.ui.pn=common.ShowParent&spName=PINHOLERESOURCE

--
Gary (CP775 & CP5000 & D70)

 

[thomas1973]

I really like the dreamy quality of the pinhole shot! That's exactly what I want to achive!

I hope to get around to play with it in the near future. I don't think I can buy those here in Denmark. I could always order them, but I've been thinking of just making the pinhole lens myself.

There was a thread on it here on the forum, and I got the link on my home PC. The guy just made a sort of big hole in the body cap, and taped a piece of alu foil to it. The alufoil was pinned in the middle with a sharp needle before attaching to the body cap. You had to be real careful to center the holes, to get a decent result.

Thomas.

 

[Gary Filkins115013]

I really like the dreamy quality of the pinhole shot! That's
exactly what I want to achive!

Yeah ... the general softness does create a kind of dreamy, otherworldly appearance, doesn't it?

I remembered that I also had a pinhole "panorama" of sorts that might be of interest. It's more a composite than a cleanly stitched panorama and all of the five shots used to construct it were shot at approx. 1/2 second exposure. I say approx. as the actual exposure was 1 second but the EXIF show -.7 EV as having been selected when I was taking the shots -- something I hadn't noticed until today when I went back to see what the exposure info was.

At any rate ... the shots were taken with a homemade pinhole measuring about .005 inches in diameter and stuck to the outside of the body cap. Here it is:



This next one is from the same spot on the 50-yard line at the top of the bleachers (it was a "Walk for Life" event at a high school football stadium) and this series was shot with the kit lens set to its widest at 18mm focal length. This series was generally at f22 for 1/125 sec.



--
Gary (CP775 & CP5000 & D70)

 

[stevo4]

Here is a little test i did outside. Nothing fancy but starts to give an idea of the length of exposure. Still hoped for a little sharper picture, given the static nature of the shot. I also wonder how much the shutter effects the shot. I do not own a shutter release for the D70.

http://imageevent.com/production/pinholetest

Stevo

Hey There!

Has anyone played around with the Finney Field Camera's Pinhole
Body Caps? Yes, you too can convert your D70 into one of the most
expensive pinhole cameras in the world. hee hee

I got mine recently here in LA but haven't really experimented with
it yet. I'd love to see some pictures if anyone has any to share...

Thanks,

Stevo

 

[thomas1973]

Great! A pinhole pano

Your exposure time is still 1 sec, if that's what's set on the camera. The -0.7EV only shows how it deviates from the mesured exposure time (this doesn't really apply to pinhole 'lenses', as the light meter doesn't work here anyway. So I think you can just disregard any EV compensation in the EXIF.

Thanks for also providing the kitlens pano for comparison. I have to remember that for some of my upcoming pinhole shots - to bring a lens for a "real" comparison shot.

I'd love to see more of these, if you have any! Thanks for sharing! I'll have to look at those websites provided in this thread one day, and get into making my own pinhole lens.

Did you put the foil (or whatever material) on the front or the back of the body cap?

Thomas.

 

[thomas1973]

Thanks for sharing these! IMO, these are as sharp as I would want my pinhole to be. If it's sharper, a bit of the idea sort of disappears...

Thomas.

Here is a little test i did outside. Nothing fancy but starts to
give an idea of the length of exposure. Still hoped for a little
sharper picture, given the static nature of the shot. I also
wonder how much the shutter effects the shot. I do not own a
shutter release for the D70.

http://imageevent.com/production/pinholetest

Stevo

 

[Gary Filkins115013]

Did you put the foil (or whatever material) on the front or the
back of the body cap?

In the pano shots, the pinhole was affixed to the front (outside) of the body cap. I played with both inside and outside with the purchased pinhole but all shots taken with the homemade were made with it on the outside of the body cap.

I don't really have any other shots right now though I do hope to play with it again in the not-too-distant future. I had taken a few but they were strictly experiments for exposure testing purposes and were deleted as they were made simply because they either didn't work out or I was satisfied to have garnered the information I needed with them.

I'll post an update with photos whenever I get the chance to play with it some more.

--
Gary (CP775 & CP5000 & D70)

 

[thomas1973]

Did you put the foil (or whatever material) on the front or the
back of the body cap?

In the pano shots, the pinhole was affixed to the front (outside)
of the body cap. I played with both inside and outside with the
purchased pinhole but all shots taken with the homemade were made
with it on the outside of the body cap.

I don't really have any other shots right now though I do hope to
play with it again in the not-too-distant future. I had taken a
few but they were strictly experiments for exposure testing
purposes and were deleted as they were made simply because they
either didn't work out or I was satisfied to have garnered the
information I needed with them.

I'll post an update with photos whenever I get the chance to play
with it some more.

--
Gary (CP775 & CP5000 & D70)

 

[nikosalpha]

what are all these?? I'm a new person in these stuff! what is a pinhole, what for??

Thomas.

Here is a little test i did outside. Nothing fancy but starts to
give an idea of the length of exposure. Still hoped for a little
sharper picture, given the static nature of the shot. I also
wonder how much the shutter effects the shot. I do not own a
shutter release for the D70.

http://imageevent.com/production/pinholetest

Stevo

--
----------------------------------------------
http://www.tety.gr/portfolio/nikosalpha

 

[thomas1973]

what are all these?? I'm a new person in these stuff! what is a
pinhole, what for??

A pinhole camera is basically a lightsealed box, with film at one end, and a tiny tiny hole (pinhole) at the other end. The hole is so small as it acts like a lens, by the way it lets the light pass (I'm sure there are some excellent scientific explanations if you follow some of the links in the other posts).

Because you don't have a real lens, only a hole for the light to pass through, the picture won't be very sharp (as seen in the samples in this thread). The light is very small, so you need a long exposure time to get enough light on the film. Because of the blurring and the long exposure and the lack of glass lens elelments, you get this special dreamy quality to the shots. I like it a lot.

Now, you can fairly easily turn your state-of-the-art technology D70 $1000 camera into the most simple form of photography - a pinhole camera. The mere idea of it is pretty cool to me

I hope that explanation made some sense. Check out some of the links or do a small google search, and you will find...

Thomas.

 

[nikosalpha]

Thanks once again thomas, It was very helpful! I'll maybe give it a try!

what are all these?? I'm a new person in these stuff! what is a
pinhole, what for??

A pinhole camera is basically a lightsealed box, with film at one
end, and a tiny tiny hole (pinhole) at the other end. The hole is
so small as it acts like a lens, by the way it lets the light pass
(I'm sure there are some excellent scientific explanations if you
follow some of the links in the other posts).

Because you don't have a real lens, only a hole for the light to
pass through, the picture won't be very sharp (as seen in the
samples in this thread). The light is very small, so you need a
long exposure time to get enough light on the film. Because of the
blurring and the long exposure and the lack of glass lens
elelments, you get this special dreamy quality to the shots. I like
it a lot.

Now, you can fairly easily turn your state-of-the-art technology
D70 $1000 camera into the most simple form of photography - a
pinhole camera. The mere idea of it is pretty cool to me

I hope that explanation made some sense. Check out some of the
links or do a small google search, and you will find...

Thomas.

--
----------------------------------------------
http://www.tety.gr/portfolio/nikosalpha