All of this Perfection and Pinhole too!?!

Pinhole

Oh boy!  I do so love the use and functionality of the new Fuji X Pro 1 camera system!  I have it plus the Fuji system lenses (35mm, 18mm & the 60mm) and haven’t touched my other camera systems since it arrived!   But, the point of this post is Pinhole Photography!  Last Sunday was the World Wide Pinhole day.  This got me thinking earlier in the month that I ought to be able to use the X Pro 1 for this as well.  No one makes a pinhole plate for the Fuji X mount lens system as of yet, so what to do?  Well, I had purchased the  Kipon Leica M converter for the X Pro 1 in advance of getting the Voigtlander Super Wide Heliar 15mm f/4.5 M  lens and thought: “Why don’t I find a pinhole plate to fit the Leica M?”

Skink Pinhole Plate For Leico M

Well, sure enough there it was on EBay!  Skink out of Germany and they had several models and one of them caught my eye.  It is 24mm wide and has a aperture of f/110.  It is all black and came with the pinhole, a zone plate and a sieve plate!  So I ordered it and had it arrive before the pinhole day.   I did some initial testing and found that if you select the 24mm frame lines that it matches up perfectly with the pinhole plate with the optical viewfinder!  What more could you ask for? Of course with any pinhole work you are required to work on a tripod and this is no exception.  The nice thing about using the X Pro 1 for pinhole is that the gain of the LCD view changes dynamically and allows you to see the image on the back of the camera for setup and composition!  There is no focus of course so it is just basically point and shoot from the tripod.

I have always been passionate about the old ways in photography.  I still have film in my freezer and a 4×5 film camera in a glass case waiting for the day to be used again! But I also have various pinhole systems in film and adapter plates for ALL of my digital camera systems.  I have purchased several from Linex Laser and many from Skink, I even have the Pinwide adapter for micro 4/3’s.  The point is, that shooting with pinholes is just plain fun.  People walk by and always ask what I am doing since they see no lens.  If you have not tried this old technology you should give it a try. It is inexpensive (well except for the X Pro 1 since you also have to have an adapter) and will amaze you with the results!

Now, REMEMBER, pinhole photography does NOT use a lens of any type!  It uses a simple hole in a metal plate thru which the light passes and diffracts!  The resulting image on the film or sensor is slightly diffused but equally sharp from the lens to infinity!  All of this with no glass lens!

Well suffice it to say, Pinhole day was a great success and filled with fun!  If you have not tried it you really should.  You do not have to purchase a pinhole, you can modify your camera body cap and create one yourself, it is very easy!

Here are some images for you to consider.  Most are taken with the X Pro 1 but one or two are on a Micro 4/3 body only to show that ANY camera system will do for this!

Pawleys Marsh Pinhole. X Pro 1

Pawleys Island Marsh Pinhole, X Pro 1

Fuga City Detail Pinhole, GH2