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Red Dragon and Pinhole Lens (ISO 12800)

George A.

George A.

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Not for the faint of heart or the image purist...

Here's a quick-and-dirty clip of a Pinhole Lens on the Red Dragon camera.

Show at the highest possible ISO: 12800
At 5K

Every time I'm having fun with pinhole lenses I notice small black specks in the image. People say they're actually very very small dirt specks on the sensor but I disagree. Switching between pinhole lenses on the same camera results in specks of different sizes and placed elsewhere. So I think it's a characteristic of pinhole lenses in general. I think one could remove them in post but of course I didn't go to the trouble here.

Enjoy...




https://vimeo.com/93854338


George




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This would be a great way of emulating very old movie footage. Set frame rate at 16 fps and add a camera sound and voila`, turn of the 20th century footage.

@George, did you try any locked off low framerate still footage? That would be an interesting test with the pinhole.
 
Awesome, maybe a little chroma NR pass and bam, old time look :)
 
Nice!
May I ask how big was the hole?
I have some broken lenses thinking I could knock the lens of and use the iris as a variable pin hole lens.
For old looking footage simulation it looks really good in some parts. All thats missing is the above mentioned low frame rate grain dust and scratches and also very important and commonly forgoten, gate weave. :)
 
Awesome George. Could we see a still of what the lens looks like?
 
Elsie N said:
This would be a great way of emulating very old movie footage. Set frame rate at 16 fps and add a camera sound and voila`, turn of the 20th century footage.

@George, did you try any locked off low framerate still footage? That would be an interesting test with the pinhole.
Click to expand...

Hi Elsie,

I tried and the results can indeed be interesting, given the right circumstances. I do get the same feeling of very old film footage etc (or badly shot and/or very aged 8mm film). Otherwise, the trouble with these pinhole lenses is that you need a TON of light. I am talking nothing less than very bright sun outdoor. Even overcast conditions might prove problematic - the image could be a bit too dark. Not a big deal, it simply means shooting in the right conditions. It's fun to play around and simply see what happens.

Björn Benckert said:
Nice!
May I ask how big was the hole?
I have some broken lenses thinking I could knock the lens of and use the iris as a variable pin hole lens.
For old looking footage simulation it looks really good in some parts. All thats missing is the above mentioned low frame rate grain dust and scratches and also very important and commonly forgoten, gate weave. :)
Click to expand...

Hi Björn,

The hole is only .24mm
So I think using the iris as a variable pinhole would not work. Even at minimal setting, the hole would be too large to project a reasonable sharp image onto the sensor. See the photos below. Also there's a much easier way to get the same results, also suggested below.

Will Keir said:
Awesome George. Could we see a still of what the lens looks like?
Click to expand...

Two quick pics attached below. Alternatively, you can simply wrap aluminum foil around your PL mount making sure you seal everything really well. And then with a small pin, you can puncture the foil right in the middle. I've gotten interesting-looking images that way, too.




George




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thats so friggin cool man! i really love threads like this and the other one with the cheap lens. people get so caught up in pixel peeping that they sometimes forget what its like to do interesting combinations such as this, with crazy cool results i might add, because clearly i don't think many of us had seen a new age camera shot like this (at least not many of us). i think its what separates the art from the tech side, being able to throw together odd ball combinations and create compelling images like this. retro can be compelling, old can be cool too! i think this is very cool stuff and am really stoked out on it!
 
Bérenger Brillante said:
I love it. Can we choose the focal lenghts ?
Click to expand...

No Bérenger, but one could choose a different diameter for the small hole, as well as placing it closer or farther away from the sensor.

- a smaller pinhole would in theory provide a sharper image (with some practical limits, since you will run into diffraction soon)

- bringing the pinhole closer to the sensor would make the angle of view wider (similar to a wider lens), and consequently, having it further away from the sensor would make the angle of view narrower (similar to a longer lens). In my case, I am relying on the PL mount so I can't vary the distance. I guess I could find a Leica-M pinhole and try it on my Leica-M mount, bringing the hole much closer to the sensor plane.
 
Someone (Patrick Faith?) should see how a pinhole looks on a Monochrome!
 
A few years back I did something similar. I drilled a hole in the centre of a lens cap then used foil tape over the hole. Used a pin and played with different size holes in to foil. It works.
 
George A. said:
- bringing the pinhole closer to the sensor would make the angle of view wider (similar to a wider lens), and consequently, having it further away from the sensor would make the angle of view narrower (similar to a longer lens)..
Click to expand...

Does this mean that this is more or less 52mm? = Distance from the sensor to the pl mount/pin hole.

Well there is no much logic. I think it would only make a bigger or smaller image circle with less or more light depending on distance. Isn't?

Pat
 
Patrick Tresch said:
Does this mean that this is more or less 52mm? = Distance from the sensor to the pl mount/pin hole.

Well there is no much logic. I think it would only make a bigger or smaller image circle with less or more light depending on distance. Isn't?

Pat
Click to expand...

Hi Pat,

Yes, more or less 52mm, but remember, there is a M42 to PL mount adapter in there, too. Normally, it should be at 45.5mm (the flange of M42) but as I mentioned before, the pinhole didn't fit in the PL adapter, so I simply reversed the adapter. Thus the pinhole itself sits a bit farther away than standard M42, which puts it again at maybe 50mm or so.

You are also right about the image becoming more or less bright as the pinhole sits closer or farther from the film/sensor plane. And sharper/less sharp, too, depending on the distance. However, a bigger or smaller image area "translates" into a wider or narrower angle of view... not literally as in the case of "normal" lenses, but this is the effect.

I dug out my dusty Ansel Adams book from my storage and I scanned a page from it. By the way, the entire section on "Pinholes" in his book "The Camera" is pretty interesting.




George
 
You could change the focal length through extension tubes or even better a bellows adapter...

$T2eC16d,!y8E9s2fk3F3BR0cE9kjRg~~60_35.JPG


I had a pinhole class back in college and we made tons of cameras. My favorite was to put a pinhole on the lens board of a 4x5 view camera. Instant Pinhole Zoom.
 
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