Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day 2012 - 29 April 2012.

AKA: Worldwide Comedy of Photographic Errors Day

This year we used the "4x5 Box Pinhole" we made last year and used a mix of paper and film - Arista.EDU RC Paper, Grade #2 and Arista.EDU ULTRA, ISO 100 film. Ye Olde Photographer definitely finds film easier to work with and it gives faster exposures. We re-ran the flash test this year and used a slightly higher level of pre-flash on the paper. Unfortunately, with so few shots it's not that obvious whether we got improvement.

In keeping with a policy of perpetual tinkering, YOP designed a folding wireframe viewfinder for the camera, intending to build it with black anodized aluminum (scraps on hand) for the frames. Fortunately, time running short led to a quick fabrication of something glued up out of black mat board. As it turns out, the angle of view is so wide, such a finder is just about useless! As it's only attached with two-sided tape, it will probably be gone next time. Just point the sucker in the general direction and shoot!

Breaking past precedent, it was an absolutely gorgeous day. Armed with a short list of possible sites and maps, we headed out, bristling with cameras. Some targets were also picked for studies with lens-based photos, in addition to a pinhole shot. Alas, a few of the destinations were either inaccessible or deemed not worth the trouble.

Perhaps Ye Olde Photographer tried to do too many things this year. For future reference: Shots on pre-flashed paper work much better if the emulsion faces the pinhole! Of five holders YOP loaded, the one he used for two of the three shots on paper had the sheets emulsion side in - checked; the others were all OK. YOP also managed to confuse the labeling at one point and shoot some film as though it were paper. It is ISO 100 film and has pretty high reciprocity failure, so in spite of nearly three stops over-exposure, a slight pull on development produced quite OK negatives.

The official WPPD submission should appear at this link.