Well its Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day (WPPD) time
again! Actually WPPD was on April 30th this year but I just got my
film & scans back, picked out the one I wanted to post to the WPPD website
and got it uploaded. The image shown above is the one I selected. It is an 8
second exposure on Kodak Portra 400 shot with the new Ondu 35mm Pocket Pinhole acquired
last year through their most recent Kickstarter campaign.
It is a delightful compact little camera hand crafted from
the most beautiful wood. This was the very first roll of film I put through it
and was generally pleased with the results. My biggest complaint is the
shutter. This is basically just a piece of wood that pivots up and down across
the pinhole and works fine except it is very easy to not get it open all the way
or to get your hand and fingers in the way when opening and closing. For longer
exposures this is not a big deal but for short exposures it can create a brown blur
at the periphery of the image. Here’s a picture of Ondu.
In
the future I will use this camera with slower film and/or select compositions
that require longer exposures so that I can take the time to make sure the
shutter is completely open. Anything longer than 10 seconds should be fine for
this strategy. That way even if the shutter arm is in the way briefly it will
not affect the image.
