Topic: It's alive!

[limr]

My first homemade pinhole camera, that is.

I found an old wooden box in a junk shop, cut up a can of seltzer for the pinhole plate, took apart an empty film cartridge from a pack of Fujifilm for a film holder, and got some craft felt for light seals. Glued magnets around the edge of the hole I cut in the bottom of the box so I could use a magnet for the shutter.

Here's what it looks like: (forgive the necessary evil of d****** pictures of the camera)




But wait! There's more!

I took a couple of test pictures with Harman Direct Positive paper and developed them in the bathroom.

Now, this may not seem like a big deal since most of you have been doing darkroom work for years. This, however, is a first for me. Ever. I've never developed anything by myself. I've wanted to for a long time but for various reasons, never got started.

Until yesterday.

The pictures aren't that great and it's clear that I need to make some adjustments to my camera, my exposures, and possibly my developing (any thoughts or advice would be welcome, of course!), but I am beyond excited that I've finally gotten myself started. I just couldn't believe how wonderful it was to watch that image slowly appear on the paper. I was thrilled that I at least made actual images instead of a totally blank sheet of paper. In a lot of ways, I am more proud of these crappy first attempts than I am of my best shots taken with a 'proper' camera, and certainly of anything at all I've ever taken with a d****** (shhhh, I won't mention it again).

So here are my first two EVER self-developed pictures. The first one was exposed for one minute and developed in Caffenol for 4 minutes. The second one was exposed for 1 minute 40 seconds and developed in Caffenol for 4 minutes. (The blue marks in the corner and on the left side were from the scanning. The paper was still a tiny bit curled so some of the light reflected off the glossy surface. Will rescan them soon but I was too impatient to blab about them, so I'm posting them as is.)





Many many thanks to Becky and Diane for their advice on using Caffenol with the direct positive paper!

--Leonore

[Francois]

Looks like a promising first try!

By the way, digital for description pictures does get the Leon stamp of approval... so no worry there!

Heck, we once had a member who didn't have a scanner and resorted to photographing his film shot pictures and he had no problem!

[Ezzie]

Two firsts in one go is pushing your luck. But I must say you have not done bad. A light leak somewhere maybe, or something in your processing. I would be happy myself. Nothing like the trepidation of seeing your first images develop.

[astrobeck]

Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now you will be forever hooked and looking at and for boxes in a totally different way.
I think the only improvement is just experimenting more and getting comfortable with your setup and workflow.

There seems to be some odd glimmers/reflective stuff going on...can't really tell for certain, but blacking out the inside of the pinhole with a sharpie marker will help with that.   Just dab the black marker directly in the hole, let it dry and then delicately clean out the hole if any teeny beads of marker stuff remain.  Or just dab the hole with the marker, them immediately blow it out with some canned air.
No matter how thin the pinhole material, it is still a tunnel as far as light is concerned.

These are great, can't wait to see some more!!!!!!!!     

Oh, and I love that box!

[limr]

Looks like a promising first try!
...
Heck, we once had a member who didn't have a scanner and resorted to photographing his film shot pictures and he had no problem!

Thank you!
Interestingly, I see on other forms that a lot of people actually prefer to photograph negatives or prints rather than scan them. I think I'll stick to the scanners.

Two firsts in one go is pushing your luck. But I must say you have not done bad. A light leak somewhere maybe, or something in your processing. I would be happy myself. Nothing like the trepidation of seeing your first images develop.

Thank you as well! As for pushing my luck...well, that's pretty much how I work. I'm the person who does things like move to Turkey with two suitcases and three vocabulary words and stay for three years.

Having said that, I'm going to be systematic about my adjustments. I've redone the light seals and tomorrow I'll try the same shot and developing to compare and see how much changes. And hopefully improves!

My biggest confusion at the moment is determining exposure times for my particular setup.

Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now you will be forever hooked and looking at and for boxes in a totally different way.
I think the only improvement is just experimenting more and getting comfortable with your setup and workflow.

There seems to be some odd glimmers/reflective stuff going on...can't really tell for certain, but blacking out the inside of the pinhole with a sharpie marker will help with that.   Just dab the black marker directly in the hole, let it dry and then delicately clean out the hole if any teeny beads of marker stuff remain.  Or just dab the hole with the marker, them immediately blow it out with some canned air.
No matter how thin the pinhole material, it is still a tunnel as far as light is concerned.

These are great, can't wait to see some more!!!!!!!!     

Oh, and I love that box!

Very helpful suggestions, thanks (again!)

I will certainly be looking at flea markets and garage sales in a whole new way. Don't get me wrong - I love me my regular old film cameras, but there's something so tactile and satisfying about a homemade pinhole camera.

Yup. Hooked.

(And yea, pinhole or no, I was still going to buy that box. Only $5, who wouldn't? )

[astrobeck]

Oh, to help with the  curlies of the Harman paper, after they are dry, I usually put mine in the pages of one of my heaviest star atlases.

Sandwiched between some waxed paper in the heavy book for a few days makes them pretty flat.

A heavy dictionary is my other option....give it a try.

Let's see some more!

 

[Diane Peterson]

Well it's all  up /down hill from here..a very good thing...I love making the cameras.. I purchased some black very thin foam at a craft store and it is the best thing I have ever found for light seals.. Email me with your address and I will send you a sample..it will be self explanatory..and it's cheap..about a dollar for a 9x14 sheet.. Goes a long way...your images are great!

I will also send you a great cigar box..they are perfect for cameras...and you can have a different focal length!

[limr]

I definitely have heavy dictionaries! My latest batch are lying under them as we speak.

The good news is that I fixed the light leak. The bad news is that I underexposed or underdeveloped my next few attempts. I did some calculations for exposure and did two more shots. I decided to try the batch of Caffenol I already had. I ended up leaving them in for 8 minutes each. They were pretty light and there was some fogging. So I learned some limitations of the developer. I made up a new batch, did two more exposures, and started developing. I think I panicked because they were starting to look really dark, at least under the red light, after only 3 minutes, so I pulled them out. After looking at them in regular light, it looks like  they were dark because I under exposed them but probably took them out of the developer too soon.

I'm still getting discernible images and I'm making notes of everything so I can keep a steep learning curve. I'll scan more images when they are flattened out more.

My biggest complaint at this point is that this pesky little teaching job has started up again this week and I have no real time to play some more until Friday!

[Ed Wenn]

Hats off to you, Limr; this is a momentous occasion and your excitement is truly infectious. Well done.

[limr]

Thank you, Ed. That was really sweet

Diane: So far the re-positioned felt is working. It means that I'll have to add a clasp to keep the top closed now, but for the moment, some rubber bands are doing the trick. They're just not as pretty! I'll PM my address - I've seen sheets of foam in the craft store, but there are lots of different kinds, so it would be great to have a sheet of the stuff that worked for you so I can make sure I can find the same thing around here.

[jojonas~]

congrats! developing prints is such a magic movement every time for me. I'm glad you got to experience it first hand too
and inspiring results~~ love the second shot with the combination with the flare

I've had a pinhole workshop in the darkroom this summer and just yesterday a caffenol workshop. may I ask what recepy you used for the caffenol? I usually skip the vitamin c so I'm more sure to get a nice tint

[limr]

Thanks Jonas! It really does feel like magic, doesn't it? I can't believe it's taken me so long to finally start darkroom work.

I used Delta-STD following these instructions: http://www.caffenol.org/2010/03/12/the-delta-recipe/

I was all ready for the infamous Caffenol Stank, but I have to say it really wasn't that bad. Maybe because I just made a small amount? It actually just reminded me of Turkey, which might not sound like a nice thing to say about Turkey, but instant coffee was very popular there - at least it was 10 years ago - so many cafes smelled strongly of Nescafe. So now Caffenol just brings back memories of being desperate for some proper coffee

[limr]

Did some more pictures with the pinhole. The first three were the ones I did earlier in the week.

The first one was exposed at a minute and 20 seconds and while developing, it still looked really light at 4 minutes, so I kept it in for 8 minutes. I did that do a second one as well, but it came out even lighter (not attached.) Not sure how much of that was the exposure and how much of that was weak Caffenol, since it was a couple of days old.

So I made a new batch and took two more shots.
The second picture below was exposed for about 45 seconds because the sun was brighter than for the first shot. This is the one that I might have underexposed and also underdeveloped.

The third picture also seem to have suffered from the same problems. I got tired of the morning glory so I went out to the driveway and my father's old Cadillac. The sun was bright, but the placement of the camera was probably an issue and a lot of light was blocked. It was also sitting on blacktop, so that probably also absorbed a lot of light. But this also helped me get a much better handle on where the camera should be to get an image closer to what I want.

For the next few days, I did some more research into how to calculate exposures for this camera and this paper. This morning, I put it to the test. I set out the camera in one of my favorite still-life rooms because it gets such great light in the morning. I metered the shot a couple of times and came up with an exposure of 20 minutes. I set it up and left the room. When I came back, I realized the light was dimmer than it was before and I should probably expose for another stop, which meant another 20 minutes. I kept wanting to cut it short because I was getting nervous, so I had to keep yelling at myself to JUST TRUST THE MATH!

New batch of Caffenol, four minutes on the timer...go! After 3 minutes, I saw the paper going dark. Then as it saturated with water, it sank totally below the surface and I couldn't see it. I got antsy again and had to yell at myself again. JUST TRUST THE CHEMISTRY!

The 4th picture below is what came out. I think I'm starting to get better at this!

[Diane Peterson]

That last one is a keeper!