Saturday, February 20, 2016

Digital Pinhole

A couple years ago I got a Holga HPL-P “pinhole lens” for my Pentax K mount cameras and I have been less than satisfied with it. First I discovered it was really set up for digital “crop frame” or APS-C cameras so that when I used it with a 35mm film (full frame body) it did not fill the frame but left the image in a little circle in the middle of the frame.

Then I tried it with my Pentax digital camera (I was using an istDL at the time) and was not impressed at all. The image quality was nothing to get excited about and unlike most true pinhole cameras the focal length was such that the field of view was essentially the same as a standard 50mm lens.

Fast forward to today – these days I am shooting with a Pentax KS-1 and I decided to try the HPL-P again. The focal length and field of view is still the same but the much more advanced sensor and processor in the KS-1 does a much better job so that with minimal tweaking in post processing I ended up with the amazingly sharp and clear and colorful image shown above.

I am still of the opinion that film is better for shooting pinhole and that the wide angle, infinite depth of field effect of traditional pinhole images is what it is all about but I have to admit the images resulting from my latest efforts with this “lens” and DSLR combination is very pleasing.

This makes me want to play with digital pinhole some more.

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