It was a good weekend ….

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Friday night was warm for the Halloweeners. Saturday and Sunday I spent quite a few hours at a model train show with the club of which I am a member. I wish my legs and back were about fifteen years younger, I had to call both days off early and go home to lay down. Concrete floors do that to us old people. I took a few record shots with my Canon P&S, nothing interesting for here, just some possibly to use on our club website.

The parts and pieces are in place to start two different projects. A small model railroad layout for my home, something I have never had; and the stereo twinning of the Olympus XA2 35mm cameras that I mentioned a while back. 

The results aren’t complete yet on the digital Kodak twins, the software doesn’t seem to be able to latch on to the fuzzy detail from the pinhole lenses. I will have to try doing just stereo pairs rather than the anaglyph images I was hoping for.

The pamphlet for the 2009 one day NYC bus trips came last week and I purchased a ticket for the second week of May. Something to look forward to. Along those lines, my Wife and I will be taking our first trip to Cancun, Mexico in February.

Dollar Store Pinhole Cameras – An Update

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Last night I spent three+ hours destroying one of these quality cameras trying for a simple way to make the shutter stay open when the release was held down. Nothing doing. Then another two hours trying to add a second push/pull shutter release. Too contrived and not what I was looking for. I covered the parts with a towel and left them there, in the dark, with no food or water, to come to their senses and tell me what to do.

After looking at a Blog on WordPress an hour ago, that I found using the Tag Search with pinhole as the search word, I had my answer. I was being much to mechanically minded on the project. I decided to just take the shutter mechanism out, leave the shutter release to serve the function of a film advance regulator and use …. drumroll ……… rimshot ………. duck/duct tape or black electrical tape !

http://johnsomerville.wordpress.com/

Above is the Blog where I found my inspiration. Thank you John ! My Bloglist widget has a link to his Blog.

I have made an early New Year’s Resolution – to take at least one picture a day with both my DSLR and a pinhole camera. I have been spending too much time at the keyboard and workshop. Winter is coming and the Fall colors are passing me by.

Just now I found a small blurb regarding the difference in developing 220 vs 120 film. The physical difference is there is no paper backing on 220 film, making it very sensitive to light. This comes into play when you load/unload the film. Also, if you have a camera that has a red viewing circle, there are no numbers and the light coming in through the circle can fog the film. This is probably old news to MF film users, but was news to me. I was planning on using a roll of 220 color in my homemade stereo pinhole camera to double the number of stereo pairs, this info saved me the price of a ruined roll of film.

It is wonderful to be retired ..

 
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 .. and have the opportunity to just stop what you were doing and strike off on a different path without asking permission.

 This morning I was digging around in the rear of a drawer full of parts for projects that were never completed/started/remembered, looking for a 58mm lens cap. I found two K*odak E*asyshare C340 5MP digital cameras. Both had the same problem (I got them at an auction website as for repair only), the little shutter over the lens did not open when the lens assembly extended during power up. I had thought to glue them open and use them as cheap point and shoot backups. One showed my failed attempt, the shutter was glued open OK, but the lens had a blob of the glue dead center. 

Since I had thought quite a bit during the wood stereo pinhole project about those two Olympus XA2 35mm cameras and their future conversion to a coupled stereo film pair setup; the jump to a pinhole digital stereo pair setup was very easy. The lens cap search was put on the back burner and an immediate trip to the workshop followed.

The matched pinholes are constructed and the flat black paint is now drying in the workshop. I will post a construction how-to on my website  >> http://photopgraphyhacks.org  << when it is complete and images will be placed here.  There is a clickable link in the BlogSpots widget to the right >>>>>>>>>>

Update: I just posted a small article on my website regarding making matching pinholes for either a stereo pinhole camera or matched pinhole cameras.

Pinhole Day 2009

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According to the Pinhole Day website > www.pinholeday.org < each year Pinhole Day is on the last Sunday in April which will make it April 26, 2009.

Time to start planning ahead ! 

Quick synopsis of Pinhole Day – the day that all participants take image(s) and upload to the website. All uploads will then be put in a gallery. The Pinhole Day galleries for past years (2001-2008) are available for perusal. It is amazing to see the images from all over the world, taken with all sorts of cameras, all within the same 24 hour period.

Take time to look at the galleries for the past years. I make a bookmark of the last image I have looked at and then start in the same place when I again have the time.

I will put a clickable link within the Web list Widget to the right.

As soon as I get a few images sorted out, I will make some pages up to hold them, after all, I am trying to have a PhotoBlog here. LOL

Edit/Update at 9:30PM – I added a page with some of the images from the stereo pinhole camera.

It is a dark and dreary day ……….

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Perhaps I will see what develops ……….  Enough of that ! 

I do have a personal website, nothing for sale and no opinions on current affairs.

Update March 2009: The website below is now being forwarded to this website. All information is on a page named photographyhacks.

There is an article with details on the Yashica A conversion to pinhole, another on those screw on wide angle adapters, and more photographs.

Today I am going to attempt working with the stereo pairs I have from my homemade pinhole stereo camera. I will probably do one in P***oshop and another in a freeware stereo program. When I get done, if either are decent, I will post them in a message here. They will be in both stereo pairs for crosseyed viewing and in anaglyph format for use with red/cyan glasses.

I just found that the NYC metro system has a 1 day pass for $7.50, available at automatic dispensers. Compared to the double decker bus day pass it is a bargain. I believe I will get one first thing. A note to remember for newbies on the NYC Subway system- in less traveled areas of Manhattan (possibly other places also) there are entrances that only go in one direction. With my last fare used on my card, I went through the turnstile and got in an uptown terminal – yup – I wanted downtown. So, back through the turnstile, up the stairs, across the street, back down, purchase another fare ticket and get on the correct train.  Like I have said in an earlier posting here, I am but a country bumpkin.

A test roll through the stereo pinhole

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Today we had a lot of running around so all I accomplished was a test roll through the stereo pinhole camera.

I took exposures in the full Sun of 18,24 and 30 seconds and then a five minute in the sun to check for leaks. Yet another roll of film in the bag. I saw a blurb on a Chinese blog about the film I am using being prone to dye transfer from the paper backing to the negative. This was being blamed on long storage (6mos) before developing exposed film. Something to think about and watch for. I keep my film in a freezer at -10F and only remove it to shoot, I wonder if that has any bearing.