LF pinhole cameras... worth any use?

[reg]

I've noticed that you can get some B&W large format film for less money than I had originally thought, but at the same time I don't have any budget for more cameras right now, not even a few hundred. That's where pinhole comes in. Are they worth a shot for any use? I have tried pinhole on 35mm and got some interesting results, but at the same time I'm not going to be making mural sized prints from a pinhole camera anytime soon either so HUGE enlargement isn't the want or need here.

 

[compur]

I think pinholes are great. I made a 4x5 pinhole some years ago (my first)
and the image quality was much better than expected. For the pinhole
I simply cut a piece of a black plastic envelope from a box of photo paper
and passed a hot needle through it. Works fine.

 

[christopher walrath]

Yeah, start with a cigar box or a can of oats or damn near anything. pinhole photography is fun. BIG pinhole photography is awesome.

 

[compur]

Freestyle also has a reversal paper so you can make positive prints right
in the camera (use the paper in place of film).

See:
http://www.freestylephoto.biz/sc_prod.php?cat_id=&pid=1000002921

 

[christopher walrath]

That's cool. I'll have to keep that in mind for spring buying, aka tax refund, aka the onset of G. A. S. season.

 

[Mike_E]

Hey Chris, wasn't there an article in the e-mag in you sig that featured a pinhole 4x5 that had had an LF lens added? I seem to recall that the camera had been built so that that particular lens was at it's hyperfocal when mounted and you focused the camera with the aperture.

 

[christopher walrath]

I've slept since then but that does sound familiar. I have a spare lensboard myself and I think I'm gonna affix a pinhole to that and play with some Arista 100 B&W 4x5.

 

[Hawaii Five-O]

Hmm i might have try this with LF.


I used a pinhole for photography paper before it was really neat.

what would the exposure times be though, for LF?