Ilford FP4

Tried my hand at pinhole portraiture.  I’m reasonably pleased with the results.  Quite an achievement to get a four year old to stand this still for three seconds.  I always keep coming back to the problem of pinhole, is that I never seem to be close enough – Imogen here is about three feet away.

Imogen at Whitby Abbey

Okay, so its a poor play on words!

Days of Future Passed, Sunset on the Winter Solstice at Barbrook I Stone Circle

I’m beginning to get quite taken with shooting in to the sun with my pinhole camera – the effects can be quite interesting as its just pure unfiltered light on to film, no lenses or grads to get in the way.  The shot above, made at sunset at the winter solstice actually shows multiple sun sets, as the sun moved behind clouds over this 30 minute exposure.  It should have been 40 plus minutes but as the skies cleared the exposure got shorter and shorter until I just guessed that the film had been exposed for long enough!   I’m very pleased with the shot, especially the ghosting of the people as they stand and watch the end of the days of darkness and look towards longer days again.

Low Winter Sun, Gardoms Edge, Derbyshire Peak District

I particularly like this shot, taken in early January 2012 when the sun doesn’t get particularly high in the sky anyway.  I like especially the randomness of the rays of light bursting through the trees.  This shot is of a carved stone on Gardoms Edge just above Baslow.  I brought out the detail on the stone using a bottle of water.  I think it worked quite well.  The stone itself is interesting, as its actually fake.  The original stone is buried underneath.  The powers that be having taken the decision to make a cast and place it on top of the original as despite only being discovered in the 1960′s the stone was showing signs of wear as people do what people do and finger the carvings.  The fibreglass mould is quite convincing and you wouldn’t doubt it was the real thing, until that is you tap it and you realise it sounds like an up turned dinghy.  For more information on Gardoms Edge please follow this link.

Dawn within Barbrook II Stone Circle, Derbyshire Peak District

A more obvious “dawn” shot using my Zero Image 612B pinhole camera. I love the exposure in this picture, over exposed and blown out in places in the middle through to dark and heavy vignetting  on the edges.  It is full of character.  The big skies capture the essence of the place and for me its what these Neolithic/Early Bronze Age temples (as such) where all about : a place that connects man with the earth and the sky.  Something perhaps that modern temples with their roofs’ miss.  For more reading on stones circles and the relationship to the land have a read of Julian Cope’s book The Modern Antiquarian: A Pre-millennial Odyssey Through Megalithic Britain : Including a Gazetteer to Over 300 Prehistoric Sites.  A very interesting book to dip in and out of, though do make your own opinions.

I don’t think until I got my Zero Image Pinhole camera, that I ever had a “proper” (e.g. not an instamatic) camera that didn’t have metering.  Despite having used a light meter in studio situations I’ve never used them outside.  When I first got my pin hole camera I didn’t have my light meter with me, so cunningly I set my Canon 40D to ISO 125 and used that as my light meter.  I also used my Hassleblad Xpan for the same purpose, as it was loaded with Ilford FP4 Plus, the same ISO 125 film that was loaded in my Zero Image pin hole camera.  The results were quite favourable I think.

Old Car and Barn f/158 at 45sec on Ilford FP4

When you expose an image (and depending on the film) the laws of reciprocity kick in, which in general mean, if you have an exposure of over 1 second, you actually have to expose for longer than the meter is suggesting to ensure that your film is collecting all the light.  As I didn’t have a decent internet connection, I used Zero Image’s rough guide for reciprocity failure which are as follows:-

• Exposure between 1 and 4 seconds, multiply by 2
• Exposure between 5 and 49 seconds, multiply by 5
• Anything greater than 50 seconds, multiply by 12

Garden Outhouse and Chair – Pinhole, Ilford FP4, f/158 @ 36 minutes (ish)

I’m not sure what it is but these shots don’t “please” me as much as what the first two do.  Maybe its the challenging lighting conditions (e.g. in woodland with brightish sun).  Perhaps its because the scenes are too busy, too much happening?  Perhaps I need to look at simplifying my photography to go with the simple form of photography that pinhole is, e.g. have only one key thing in the image, and the backgrounds should be as uncluttered as possible.

I did start writing this post, with the intent to “blame” hard and fast rules and proper light meters for what I think is a run of poor images.  But perhaps the problem is I’m trying to do too much with a simple bit of kit.  I’m learning that with pinhole photography the closer you get the better as at 6 x 9 or 6 x 12 the image is W  I  D  E  , but at the same time traditional panoramic views don’t lend themselves well to pinhole photography I feel.

The above picture of Nine Stones Close in Derbyshire was shot at about 30 meters from the nearest stone with my Zero Image Pinhole.  To look at it you might think I was a lot further away.  I shot it where I did so that none of the stones where overlapping, but they are hardly noticeable at that distance.  I think if I went back I would try much closer, to the point that I am almost beside one of the stones to see how that works.

In the meantime, if the light is right outside, I’m going to switch my camera down to 6 x 6 (its the multi format version) and pop in some Provia 100 and see how I get on photographing flowers, I think the results could be quite interesting and almost dream like – but that remains to be seen.

Okay its lame, very lame in fact, one paraphrased album name and one paraphrased film name, but hey! I need to lighten my blog posts up with something.

So, I’ve had my Zero Image 612 multi format pinhole camera for a couple of weeks now.  The pinhole camera itself is lovely, polished teak with brass finishings, it very much ticks my tactile box (in much the same way as Crane’s Silver Rag paper ticks it too!).  The great thing about the multi format is that it’s multi format, so I can switch between 6 x 12 to 6 x 9 to 6 x 6 to 6 x 4.5 film formats. I can’t see my self using the camera at 6 x 4.5 but the other formats hold some appeal, especially the 6 x 6 format for maybe trying out some still life.   My first four films have all been at 6 x12 (that’s the latent Xpan user coming out in me), but it does mean that you can only squeeze 6 shots out of a 120 roll.  Using Ilford FP4 that works out at £0.75 a shot if you are developing and scanning yourself (based on a £4.50 roll of film).  I’m planning on using Velvia 50 next, but as that will have to go away for developing the price starts to tip over £2 a shot!

Old Car and Barn f/158 at 45sec on Ilford FP4

I do like shooting at 6 x 12 on my pin hole camera, but I’m not sure if it pleases me completely (if that makes sense).  The edges are heavily vignetted and there is the slight effect of moving at speed (look above at the tree on the left hand side), albeit it was slightly windy when I took all of my first shots, and given the length of time for the exposures perhaps this is to be expected – time will tell.

Old Car and Barn II f/158 at 45sec on Ilford FP4

The vignetting can be addressed in part, as I have tried in Adobe Lightroom.  Film gives a lot of latitude and there is still detail in the shadows on most negatives that come out.  Detail, unless you are bracketing, that a digital camera would never show I feel.

Towards Heyope – f/158 at 40 seconds (ish) on Ilford FP4

A slightly fixed up image, with a graduated Adobe Lightroom filter following the edge of hill, to darken the skies and the grass that appeared at first to be completely burnt out.  This was a challenging shot, as I was sat in shade (actually sat on the edge of a wood), shooting across to fields that clouds were passing over, breaking up the bright sunlight.

Down Hill Through the Woods – f/158 at 1min 40 seconds (ish) on Ilford FP4

What I like about using the pinhole is that it is a thoroughly unrushed affair.  No quick grab shots here, though the thought of trying some street photography with it intrigues me (I believe there was a pin hole workshop as part of the London Streetphotography Festival).  You have to sit down, compose the shot without a view finder (albeit the Zero Image camera does come with a see through bit of plastic – which is handy to start off with), work out the exposure (no in camera metering here, so its out with the old light meter), then decide depending on your film whether recipority rules apply or not (and if they do, it could push your exposure out by two, five or even twelve times the original exposure). Once you’ve worked this all out, then maybe you can slide back the shutter.  This gives you time (between checking your watch) to actually take the view in for yourself, instead of chimping at your histogram and blasting off a couple of other shots “Just in case”.  After a couple of minutes, you can think about closing the shutter and winding the film on.  Oh and don’t forget to keep your tripod steady, the images are soft enough without any more help.

I was given a Zero Image 6 x12 multi format pin hole camera for my birthday.  It was something that I wanted very much, having traversed a grand arc of starting out at evening classes using Kodak Tri-X and buying a Pentax film SLR, to giving up on film, when the Site Gallery in Sheffield closed its public dark rooms and going digital.  Since then I’ve gone from a Canon 20D to a 40D (with an IXUS 50 and G10 thrown in for good measure).  Along the way I bought a Hasselblad XPAN, that I didn’t use it much, but it felt like a good thing to buy.  It was costing me about £25 to buy and process a film.  Then at Christmas I got all the kit I needed to processes my own films at home.  I think I’ve shot about five times as much film in the past six months on my XPAN as I have in the last 5 years.  Then last Tuesday I moved on to pin hole photography and 120 film.

Pinhole Photography is very much slow photography.  Exposures starts to get measured in seconds and if you factor in reciporicty failure in your film seconds can become minutes (and hours).  No automatic exposure, no auto focus, no point and shoot – this is pencil and paper, with a good measure of suck it and see thrown in for good measure.

Here are some of my first attempts shot at 6 x 12cm.

Garden Outhouse and Chair – Pinhole, Ilford FP4, f/158 @ 36 minutes (ish)

Pentrusco House, Knucklas, Powys – Pinhole, Ilford FP4, f/158 @ 4seconds(ish)

Iris, Cottage Garden – Pin Hole Photography, Ilford FP4, f/158 @ 4 seconds (ish)

Sunlight Dappled Woodland, – Pin Hole Photography, Ilford FP4, f/158 @ 1 minute 40 seconds (ish)

Finally got round to processing some Ilford FP4 35mm film that I took using my Hassleblad Xpan Wide Format Camera. Slightly pleased, not totally. Here’s some starters for ten, I will add to this post as I scan and process some more films. One down, five to go.  With some of the bigger views, you’ll notice some vignetting on the edges, this is a “feature” of the Xpan, and can be fixed with the use of a graduated centre spot filter – I quite like it the way it is.

Janet's Foss, nr Malham Yorkshire Dales

Ribbleshead Viaduct, Xpan and Ilford FP4

Virgin Super Voyager on Settle Carlisle Railway

Malham Cove Black and White Xpan

Stainforth Foss, Yorkshire Dales National Park

Malham Tarn Sunrise, Yorkshire Dales National Park

Lone Tree and Limestone