I had a play experimenting with a pinhole lens the other day. Sometimes it’s fun to go lo-fi with technology and when all you have is the very simplest of ‘lenses’ and the results are unpredictable then you are forced into a simpler way of working and it can be an interesting process. I wrote about similar low tech adventures here a little while back.
There are lots of articles and videos with instructions on how to make a pinhole lens and you can even buy one ready made. Most techniques involve piercing a body cap but I didn’t have one spare and didn’t want to waste too much time watching videos to tell me how to make something so simple. The first attempt was simply a bit of cardboard that I pierced with a cocktail stick. I used insulation tape (I told you it was low tech!) to attach it to the camera body and off I went. Results were fairly poor! Blurred is fine but this was a bit too myopic! But what I did find was that it was a reminder of those kind of images I took on my first cameras that would invariably come back from the chemist with an advisory sticker. Something about using a crap camera on a sunny summer day produces images that best match the hazy memories I have in my head of long hot school holidays of childhood.
For the Mark II version I used a Pataks pickle jar lid which was just the right size. I put a pinhole in the middle of the lid and attached it again using tape. The results of this one were a bit better. Obviously everything has to be done manually so if you’re used to working on auto or semi auto then you have to get to know your way around working manually. The smaller and more defined pinhole (because it was through metal rather than cardboard) made the images a little clearer.
Conclusions? I took the camera down to the beach and waited in the van as a rain shower crossed the bay. It was a bit of fun making the lens and it was an interesting way to use the camera; a contrast to having the usual high tech piece of glass and motors on the front of the camera but at the end of the day, the results are predictably terrible as you might expect from a hole punched in a pickle lid! Still, it was a bit of fun for a lockdown day and the images maybe conjure something of the atmosphere of a showery afternoon at the beach.
