It is slow, it is simple and it is durable.
Those of you who know me, know that I enjoy my pinhole camera. I rarely go out on any photographic excursion without it in fact. So, I figured I would spend a few minutes tonight introducing it to those of you who are not familiar with it.
The camera I use is made by Zero Image in Hong Kong. They make beautiful, wooden cameras that operate as wonderfully as they are beautiful. My specific camera is the Zero 6×9 multi-format, though I only ever shoot it in 6×9.
There are three main reasons I enjoy my pinhole so much: it is slow, it is simple and it is durable. I am often amused at the irony that my love of nature and my love of photography have combined to get me out to more places than I would have otherwise, but that pressing desire to photograph those places sometimes causes me to rush and scramble so much for the next shot as to actually distract me from enjoying the scenery right in front of me. The aperture on my pinhole is a "blazing" f250. That means even on fairly bright days I am going to have exposures ranging from 15 to 60 seconds in length. It is not uncommon for me to expect to wait out a five or eight minute exposure either. What I have found this does is that it slows me down. I tend to find myself relaxing a bit more, looking around, studying and planning, but also just simply enjoying. The required wait on the camera pays off in a more relaxed approach to the landscape around me.
I also enjoy my pinhole camera for it's sheer simplicity. It is a wooden box with a hole on one side. No meter, no viewfinder, no shutter speeds per se, or LCD display. A box, a hole and my imagination. It is amazing how liberating that can be. As such, I find myself asking more questions with my pinhole camera, such as this shot. I wondered how this composition would work with the sun blazing in the frame and the people splashing in the fountain over the long exposure. So I set the camera up and proceeded to answer that question. Instead of worrying about the camera, and the necessary manipulations required to operate it, I was concentrating on using that camera. A subtle, yet important shift in perspective.
The simplicity of the images is also appealing to me. Sure, they are a bit soft, it is after all merely a hole in brass foil, no high quality optical glass or state of the art coatings here. But again I find that to be a benefit far more often than a hindrance. Too often I see photographers hung up on the belief that if they pursue technical precision as far as they can, then they are bound to produce good photographs in the process. There is some validity to this, a photograph has to be technically precise enough to convey its message, but the danger is believing that technical precision or perfection is in itself a strong enough message. It rarely is in my experience. Especially since there are many photographers out there skilled enough to produce images that are both technically precise and evocative. Pinhole shakes that up just a bit. It is not as sharp as lensed cameras. Its details are a bit soft and impressionistic. But I have found that when used appropriately, most people do not even notice. And this underscores what I said above, that technical precision is important to a degree, but knowing how to effectively use your camera and its abilities is far more important. And being so simple in nature, I feel the pinhole is a relatively easy camera to get to know in this fashion.
Finally, I can rarely have a discussion about pinhole without mentioning how durable this camera is. My camera has been dropped into the ocean...twice. It fell off my tripod and got swept over the Eagle Falls at Lake Tahoe. It jumped off my lap and out of a parked car in NW Portland once, shattering itself on the sidewalk. It was probably tired of being dropped in the ocean. But for all those adventures, it still works. The images it makes look as good as the day I bought it. The second time it fell in the ocean, it took about three minutes for me to find it in the surf. When I did, it was buried under wet sand, with only the leg of my tripod to indicate where it was. I opened the camera, dumped out the salt water and sand, then ran it under the faucet in a nearby restroom to rinse it out. I dried it with paper towels and had it reloaded within 15 minutes. I cannot say this would have been possible with any of my other cameras. As long as I can keep the box light tight, and as long as I do not damage the pinhole itself, this camera will last a lifetime or more.
Of course, it does not look nowhere near as nice as it used to. But it has plenty of character, and stories.
Photography and words by: Zeb Andrews (USA) ©2010
Pinhole, Zero Image
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Copyright ©Zeb Andrews. All rights reserved. This photo is not to be used as free stock.
Use without written consent by the author (Zeb Andrews) is illegal and punishable by law.
Those of you who know me, know that I enjoy my pinhole camera. I rarely go out on any photographic excursion without it in fact. So, I figured I would spend a few minutes tonight introducing it to those of you who are not familiar with it.
The camera I use is made by Zero Image in Hong Kong. They make beautiful, wooden cameras that operate as wonderfully as they are beautiful. My specific camera is the Zero 6×9 multi-format, though I only ever shoot it in 6×9.
There are three main reasons I enjoy my pinhole so much: it is slow, it is simple and it is durable. I am often amused at the irony that my love of nature and my love of photography have combined to get me out to more places than I would have otherwise, but that pressing desire to photograph those places sometimes causes me to rush and scramble so much for the next shot as to actually distract me from enjoying the scenery right in front of me. The aperture on my pinhole is a "blazing" f250. That means even on fairly bright days I am going to have exposures ranging from 15 to 60 seconds in length. It is not uncommon for me to expect to wait out a five or eight minute exposure either. What I have found this does is that it slows me down. I tend to find myself relaxing a bit more, looking around, studying and planning, but also just simply enjoying. The required wait on the camera pays off in a more relaxed approach to the landscape around me.
I also enjoy my pinhole camera for it's sheer simplicity. It is a wooden box with a hole on one side. No meter, no viewfinder, no shutter speeds per se, or LCD display. A box, a hole and my imagination. It is amazing how liberating that can be. As such, I find myself asking more questions with my pinhole camera, such as this shot. I wondered how this composition would work with the sun blazing in the frame and the people splashing in the fountain over the long exposure. So I set the camera up and proceeded to answer that question. Instead of worrying about the camera, and the necessary manipulations required to operate it, I was concentrating on using that camera. A subtle, yet important shift in perspective.
The simplicity of the images is also appealing to me. Sure, they are a bit soft, it is after all merely a hole in brass foil, no high quality optical glass or state of the art coatings here. But again I find that to be a benefit far more often than a hindrance. Too often I see photographers hung up on the belief that if they pursue technical precision as far as they can, then they are bound to produce good photographs in the process. There is some validity to this, a photograph has to be technically precise enough to convey its message, but the danger is believing that technical precision or perfection is in itself a strong enough message. It rarely is in my experience. Especially since there are many photographers out there skilled enough to produce images that are both technically precise and evocative. Pinhole shakes that up just a bit. It is not as sharp as lensed cameras. Its details are a bit soft and impressionistic. But I have found that when used appropriately, most people do not even notice. And this underscores what I said above, that technical precision is important to a degree, but knowing how to effectively use your camera and its abilities is far more important. And being so simple in nature, I feel the pinhole is a relatively easy camera to get to know in this fashion.
Finally, I can rarely have a discussion about pinhole without mentioning how durable this camera is. My camera has been dropped into the ocean...twice. It fell off my tripod and got swept over the Eagle Falls at Lake Tahoe. It jumped off my lap and out of a parked car in NW Portland once, shattering itself on the sidewalk. It was probably tired of being dropped in the ocean. But for all those adventures, it still works. The images it makes look as good as the day I bought it. The second time it fell in the ocean, it took about three minutes for me to find it in the surf. When I did, it was buried under wet sand, with only the leg of my tripod to indicate where it was. I opened the camera, dumped out the salt water and sand, then ran it under the faucet in a nearby restroom to rinse it out. I dried it with paper towels and had it reloaded within 15 minutes. I cannot say this would have been possible with any of my other cameras. As long as I can keep the box light tight, and as long as I do not damage the pinhole itself, this camera will last a lifetime or more.
Of course, it does not look nowhere near as nice as it used to. But it has plenty of character, and stories.
Photography and words by: Zeb Andrews (USA) ©2010
Pinhole, Zero Image
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Copyright ©Zeb Andrews. All rights reserved. This photo is not to be used as free stock.
Use without written consent by the author (Zeb Andrews) is illegal and punishable by law.
