Photography by Leonard Whistler

Pinhole Camera Photography

This is a 4x5 wooden pinhole camera I made which takes 4x5 sheet film. The lens is a pinhole in a 2-inch x 2-inch piece of aluminum foil. For the shutter, I used a piece of duct tape, which I would remove during the exposure.

For film I used Ilford Delta 100 4x5 black & white sheet film. The film was tray-processed in Ilford Ilfotec DD-X film developer, Ilford Ilfostop, and Ilford Rapid Fixer. I then scanned the 4x5 negatives on an Epson V700 scanner.

35mm equivalent focal length can be calculated by dividing the diagonal length of the 4x5 sheet film in millimeters (mm) by the diagonal length of a 35mm single frame. In this case 160mm / 43mm = 3.72. If you would like a wide-angle pinhole camera of about 20mm (35 equivalent) you would calculate 20mm x 3.72 = 75mm. Your pinhole camera would be 75mm from the film plane to the pinhole, equal to a 20mm lens on a 35mm camera.

To determine the f-stop of your pinhole camera, you divide the camera's focal length in millimeters by the diameter of the pinhole. The focal length is measured from the film plane to the pinhole. Example: (75mm / 0.50mm = 150) The f-stop of the pinhole is f150.

Exposures can be calculated using the sunny f16 rule, which is 100 ISO, 1/100 second shutter speed and f16. The equivalent sunny f16 rule exposure on a sunny day with a f150 pinhole and 100 ISO film is about 1 second, plus adjustments for the film's reciprocity failure due to exposures longer than 1 second. The film's data sheet will show how much to adjust the exposure.

You can also use your digital camera to calculate the exposure for the pinhole camera. Set the camera to manual (M) with the ISO at 100 and the f-stop at 16. Adjust the shutter speed until the exposure is good, then add the difference in exposure time from f16 to the f-stop of your pinhole camera. f16 to f150 is 7 stops of extra exposure, plus an adjustment for reciprocity failure.

The reciprocity failure of Ilford Delta 100 4x5 black & white sheet film can be calculated by taking the measured exposure time (Tm) to the power of 1.26 to get the adjusted exposure time (Ta). Tm^1.26 = Ta.

The results from my pinhole camera were better than I expected.

Pinhole Camera Photography