Sunday is Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day
April 28th, 2023
I’m getting ready to do my annual pinhole photo for Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day this Sunday, April 30. I do this every year, so I thought I’d post a few of my past pinhole photos. The one above was picked off the pinhole day website by the Washington Post to publish with their story about the day in 2014. It was taken with a Panasonic G5 and a Pinwide commercially-made wide-angle pinhole. This pinhole has been my favorite over the years. I used a tripod because I needed a slightly long exposure, even outdoors, for this photo. It was taken at ISO 400 at 1/13th second. Thanks to the mirrorless camera I was able to compose using the camera viewfinder…a new thing that wasn’t possible with older cameras, even digital ones.
The next year I was still using the G5, but I was able to hand-hold the camera at a 1/5th second exposure thanks to the in-body image stabilization. ISO was 800, about as high as I liked to go with that camera. The photo below was intended to show off the infinite depth of focus that is part of the nature of a pinhole. That’s a finger puppet, made much larger than Ayn, my model who was holding it. It was inches from the camera.
In 2017 I had a new camera, a Panasonic GX-8. That is a wonderful camera, the best digital camera I’ve owned. I still love it and still use it, despite its old age in digital camera years. For the photo below I went up to 1600 ISO, but used a tripod and a long 8 second exposure. I had my wonderful model, Ayn, sit still on the bed for a few seconds, then move quickly to the position standing by the window to achieve the double-exposure effect…though it was just one long exposure.
Here’s the GX-8 with the Pinwide pinhole that I was still using:
In 2021 I was still using the GX-8 and the Pinwide pinhole for the photo below. But this time I took the ISO up to 6400, which allowed me again to hand hold the camera and use a shutter speed of 1/30th second. This pinhole photo caught the attention of the Journal of the Royal Photographic Society in England. They asked to publish it along with a short essay about my work with pinhole photography. This photo of my lovely model, Eden, was also selected for an exhibit of photos by the Greater Dayton Photography Group.
Last year I had a new camera and it required a new pinhole. I took the photo below with a Nikon Z7II and a commercially-made body cap pinhole. The new pinhole is in a Nikon F mount. I use a “dumb” adapter to mount it on the Z camera. This photo was taken at 1/50th of a second, hand held using ISO 3200. With this new camera I’m able to do reasonable photos going to as high as 25,600 ISO, so hand-holding isn’t a problem. It also has image stabilization, which helps with hand-holding. Eden was the model again last year.
Here’s the new camera and the pinhole I used last year. I plan to use this camera with a Thingyfy Pinhole Pro S on Sunday for this year’s pinhole photo. It is also a wide-angle pinhole. It’s not as wide as the old Pinwide pinhole, but that micro 4/3 “lens” won’t cover the full-frame sensor of the Z7II.
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