Erna’s pinhole workshop, 30th June 2007 at the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia. Yep, a trip down memory lane, because back then we were using film!

She sealed the entire room from light and poked a hole through some manila paper to reveal a hole out into the sun. The room had become a camera obscura!

Then, it was time to make our own light-proof box.

It required a sacrificial roll of film (on the right.) We’d use a paperclip to advance the film from the new film roll to enter the roll on the right. The film was cellotaped together, and a little clicker was installed on the new roll so we could listen for eight clicks and know that a roll had advanced.

Note the inside was black to avoid internal reflection.

Sealed shut, with a manual shutter. I taped the view indicator the wrong way round on top.

The hole was about 0.2mm which was 24mm away from the film plane. Thus, the aperture would be 24mm/0.2mm = F120. Given the Sunny F16 rule, a sunny scene would take 1/13th of a second to expose with ASA 100 film. Of course, with negative film we had much leeway for over and underexposure so timing was not crucial. Add the idea that pinhole exposures are supposed to look artsy and lomographic and you can get away with more.

I poked a hole in the cardboard and placed it in front of my Sony A100 with no lens attached. Approximately 45mm F22 1/2s ISO1600. A similiar shot with the 50mm at F22 gave the same meter readings.

This time, a 5 second exposure.

We were supposed to hand the finished roll over to Erna when we were done with it, but I got a premature shock when I found that my roll gave a bit too much resistance. Had my roll finished? The clicker didn’t click anymore. It might have been dislodged, so I could’ve over-rolled.

The pinhole camera still sits in my dry box to this very day.

After that, we roamed the museum. Some may recognize Kaz of the KL Flickr group on the right.

Liyana says No Photography!

Awi setting up a Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex (TLR, not SLR) for a group shot.

In theory, I could remake the pinhole to have a crazy focal length of 12mm by shifting the pinhole back. Yes, that’s right, a rectilinear 12mm on 35mm film! The only lens that can do that is the Sigma 12-24mm F4.5-5.6 EX DG on full frame. To get there on APS-C you’d need a 6mm lens but Olympus only gets as wide as 7mm!

Shifting the pinhole back nearer to the lens also means a brighter aperture! To be exact, you’d get speeds 2 stops faster.