pinhole photography

The Comprehensive Tech Guide To Pinhole Photography

Dec 6, 2023 by Matt Bechberger 8 Comments

If you enjoy taking film photos (and want to try pinhole photography), you know the satisfaction you get from a film photo that you just don’t feel when you use digital. Just imagine seeing the first photo you get out of a camera you designed and built yourself!

The process of designing and building a camera may seem daunting, but with a bit of patience, the help of this guide, and some further reading, you’ll be able to do it. You can use this information to figure out what you want to build, gather some simple materials and tools, and build it!

Thingyfy’s Pinhole Pro Max is a pinhole lens that offers both 18-36mm zoom and a variable aperture

Mar 30, 2022 by John Aldred Leave a Comment

The folks at Thingyfy have released some interesting pinhole lenses over the last few years. 2017 brought us the Pinhole Pro, the world’s first multi-aperture pinhole lens and then in 2019 we got the Pinhole Pro X, an 18-36mm variable focal length pinhole lens with a fixed aperture. Now, the company has combined the two to bring us the Pinhole Pro Max, which offers both variable 18-36mm aperture and six different apertures.

The new lens just launched on Kickstarter and is designed for both DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, and is available in Canon EF, Nikon F, Sony A, Sony E, Fuji X, Pentax K and Micro Four Thirds mounts. It even has a 58mm filter thread on the front allowing you to add a polariser or even an ND if you want to shoot some super long (even longer than a 0.15mm f/233 aperture normally offers) exposure photography.

You can use pretty much anything as a camera lens – even shoes and potatoes

Jan 16, 2022 by John Aldred Leave a Comment

When it comes to weird lenses, Mathieu Stern is pretty much the undisputed king. But it seems we have a contender for that title who’s out to prove that you can use pretty much anything as a camera lens – as long as it’s a pinhole camera lens – as German film director and photographer Simon Meyer has been showing off on TikTok. Everything from potatoes and shoes to rolls of toilet paper and even a cuddly toy Elmo.

As mentioned, you are limited to basically using it as a pinhole camera, but differently sized objects essentially allow you to get a different focal length. Sure, you could just use an empty tube for something like this and cut it to to the length you need, but where’s the fun in that?

How to make your own DIY pinhole camera for 35mm film using a matchbox

Jan 1, 2021 by John Aldred 1 Comment

Coming to you from the guys at COOPH, here are two ways to make and shoot with a pinhole camera. The first is analogue. Yes, that’s right, it uses 35mm film, the construction is as cheap and simple as it gets. All you need is a matchbox, a fresh roll of film, an empty film spool, an empty drinks can, some thin card and a whole mess of electrical tape.

The second method is for interchangeable lens cameras and can work for either 35mm SLRs or DSLRs (or mirrorless cameras) and essentially just converts your standard camera body cap into a pinhole lens for your camera.

A beer can pinhole camera captures 8-year’s worth of sunrises and sunsets

Dec 21, 2020 by Dunja Djudjic 2 Comments

Taking photos with a pinhole camera requires very long exposures. But how about eight years long exposure? Artist Regina Valkenborgh made a pinhole camera from a simple beer can and he took a solargraph that’s believed to be the longest exposure photo ever taken. The camera recorded the sun’s path across the sky for eight years, capturing nearly 3,000 sunrises and sunsets.

How shoot stunning and creative pinhole photography in your own back yard

Jun 12, 2020 by John Aldred 1 Comment

Pinhole photography is a strange aspect of photography. On the one hand, it’s used to teach people about the bare basic principles of light and photography and building one can be a fun weekend project with the kids. But on the other, it’s also a whole craft and art form in and of itself that can be taken to quite some extreme measures and produce amazing imagery.

One such photographer who definitely seems to have mastered pinhole photography as a craft and an art form is fine art and landscape photographer Martin Henson, who in this video takes us on a journey creating a seemingly simple image with a fantastic end result.

This guy made a whole bunch of 3D printed cameras and put the plans online for free

Mar 10, 2018 by John Aldred 2 Comments

Regular DIYP readers will know that I’ve been researching 3D printing recently. My goal is to see how one might be able to help me with my photography and video tasks. Primarily to keep things organised. There’s SD card cases, battery covers, lens cap clips, charging station doohickies and all kinds of goodies on sites like Thingiverse. But I also want to have some fun, too.

One photographic collection over on Thingiverse that’s particularly cool belongs to user Schlem. He’s created a whole bunch 3D printed pinhole cameras. Most of them are medium format but there are one or two large format ones, too. One of them is even stereoscopic. He’s put all the models up so you can download and print your own, and the results coming from some of these cameras are just amazing.

A simple DIY way to turn your digital camera into a pinhole camera

Jan 20, 2018 by John Aldred 3 Comments

World Pinhole Day is coming up on April 29th. So, if you’ve been thinking about taking part, and want to do it digitally, but aren’t sure how then this one’s for you. Brought to us by Matt Coakley at Blue Mantle Films, this video walks us through the process from start to finish. It’s a very simple process, and the whole video’s only a minute and a half long. Easy to do, and costs pretty much nothing.

The Pinhole Pro is the world’s first multi aperture pinhole lens designed for DSLRs

May 23, 2017 by John Aldred 8 Comments

Pinhole photography has had an interesting life. It started off as the most basic fundamental way to capture an image. Despite becoming “obsolete” as lens technology developed, it’s still one of the first types of camera often taught to kids learning photography. They make their own from scratch and then go out and shoot with it. It’s photography at its most simple.

In the digital age, pinhole photography has started to make something of a comeback. Some make their own pinholes, while others buy modified DSLR body caps online. The Thingyfy Pinhole Pro, though, really takes pinhole photographer to the extreme. What makes it unique, and pretty cool, is that it features a variable aperture, with pinhole sizes ranging from 0.1 to 0.8mm in diameter.