A retired photographer from Scotland, travelling with a camera
A 5×4 Pinhole Picture
A 5×4 Pinhole Picture

A 5×4 Pinhole Picture

A camera, some card and two crossed fingers...

Still having some 5x4 inch film sheets left over - what do you do...? Use them of course...

I've always fancied having a go at pinhole photography, so taking one of the lens boards for my 5x4 inch camera I found some stiff card and cut a piece big enough to cover the hole where the lens usually goes. Then I coloured the card black with a sharpie.  The hardest part was finding the dead-centre of the card before making a hole in the card, and for this I used a medium sized sewing needle. I also had to be precise when I taped the card onto the lens-board, as I had to make sure it was right in the centre. Then I taped the card to the lens-board using duct tape and also made a lens cover - was also a small piece of duct tape...

Right, all set to go so I went over to Gare Loch near the old torpedo test site ruins.

Right, what about the exposure...? I only had four dark-slides so I needed to really bracket the exposure. I decided to expose 30 seconds, 1 minute, 3 minutes and 6 minutes. In the evening I went into the kitchen again and developed the sheets in a tupperware box (my ex tea-bag box), fixed the negatives in a bowl filled with fixer - and the 3 minute exposure seemed to be the better exposure.

I'm really happy with the results and wouldn't mind giving it another go. I have no film left now, so no more pictures for a while - but you never know...


 

MPP 5x4 inch. Ilford FP4 Developed in D76. Epson Expression Scanner.