Pinhole Lens

I recently bought a pinhole lens for my Olympus.  I know it is possible to make a pinhole lens fairly easily.  But I have heard that, unless you are very precise when making the hole, the results can be disappointing.  So I prefer to have someone else do the construction.  I have a Holga Pinhole lens for my Canon.  It's all plastic and the pinhole is a little large.  I have never been that happy with the images it produces.  When searching for a new one, I wanted something a little better.  I found it thanks to a company called Thingyfy.

The Thingyfy Pinhole Pro is series of interchangeable pinholes ranging in size from 0.1mm to 0.8mm.  It's made from aluminium and has a pleasing weight.  The different sized holes are selected by turning a ring and engage with a very subtle click.  It can also take a 58mm filter, which might be useful for very long exposures.  Thingyfy do versions for all camera mounts and also have a single pinhole version and a multi-hole version with a zoom ring.  Their website is US based, so I ordered from Photospecialist.  It took about a week to arrive.

I tried it out for the first time while at Madingley Hall.

When testing the full range on the same scene, and aiming for the same exposure, the sharpest images seemed to be at 0.15mm.  At 0.5mm or 0.8mm the images were very impressionistic.  Not sure how often I will take photos at this end of the range, but the bigger pinholes were very handy for composing a shot.

0.1 mm, 5.0 seconds 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 0.15 mm, 2.0 seconds                                                  

0.20 mm, 1.3 seconds

0.25 mm, 1.0 second

0.30 mm, 0.6 seconds

0.35 mm, 0.5 seconds

0.5mm, 0.25 seconds

0.8 mm, 0.1 seconds

Snowdrops at Madingley Hall

On Saturday I joined other CCC members at Madingley Hall to photograph the snowdrops.  This seems to be a good year for snowdrops.  There were lots in the wood, all at their best.  As is often the case with a planned outing, the weather was rather mixed.  There were a few breaks of light, but by lunchtime it had started to rain, so I decided to finish early. 

A Frosty Foggy Morning

 A few shots from a walk around the riverside park in St Neots, on a recent frosty and foggy day.

Glasshouse Windows by iPhone

Once I was bored of taking IR shots, I decided to try some photos of the steamy glasshouse windows, using my iPhone and the Hipstermatic app.

IR at the Botanic Gardens

On a cold day, I spent a warm couple of hours in the glasshouses at the botanic gardens.  First I tried some infra-red shots.  This was less successful then I hoped, as I struggled to find images with enough contrast.  But after some fiddling in Silver Efex and Photoshop, I did end up with a few I liked.

Forth Bridges

I detoured on the way home from Glencoe, spending a night in South Queensferry, just so I could photograph the Forth bridges.  I arrived in just about enough time to check into my hotel and find a decent viewpoint for the blue hour.  Sadly, with all the cloud, it wasn't that blue and the rail bridge wasn't very well lit.

The next morning dawned just as grey.  It was another case of trying to maximise foreground interest.  Toward the end of my shooting time, it did brighten a little, giving some nice reflections of the two road bridges.

Rannoch Moor in Snow

It kept snowing throughout Boxing Day night and into the 27th.  This was a travel day for me.  Conditions were a little lively, but the ploughs had done their work, so the roads were passable.  As I was driving over Rannoch Moor, I couldn't resist another stop. The conditions were naturally monochrome and the resultant images really lent themselves to a 'soot and whitewash' look.