Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day - 24 April 2022.

2022 was another outing for the 8x10 Pinhole Camera, with a 0.020 inches (0.51 mm) pinhole for an aperture of f/300.

Just a day or two before, Ye Olde Photographer got a Facebook notice that a local Montgomery County historical site, Pennypacker Mills, was having a Sunday afternoon presentation on the history of 3-D photography. That prompted a visit to that nearby property where YOP took two shots of the mansion, then attended the presentation, which was quite interesting.

Since the weather was quite decent and temperatures comfortable, YOP meandered northwestward to the northern outskirts of Reading and did some more pinholery at the Reading Outer Station in Temple, now the southern terminus of excursion rides on the Reading, Blue Mountain & Northern. Be it noted said railroad will be running some steam powered excursions in 2022, running behind former Reading Railroad Class T-1 #2102. This 400 ton 4-8-4 has had a major restoration. These excursions will relive the famous Iron Horse Rambles of the 1960s which this engine was part of (and YOP rode a few of!)

In all, six shots were taken on Fuji HR-T X-ray film developed 3:30 in HC-110 1+63. Initially the resulting negatives were "digitized" by the first major use of some recently acquired gear: a copy stand and an LED light tablet. The digitizer was an EOS M5 24 Mp mirrorless DSLR. It turns out the purely manual 7-Artisans 60mm f/2.8 macro lens cannot cover 8x10 at the maximum height on the stand, so an earlier EF-M 22mm f/2.0 macro was used. The resulting files were cropped to the negative dimensions and inverted with Photoshop Elements. Interestingly the process was carried out with full RGB intact, so the slightly bluish cast of the Fuji HR-T film base makes the final result somewhat sepia toned in appearance, adding to the vintage look.

Later these were contact printed on 8x10 Ilford Multigrade RC with a pearl surface. The results were judged quite satisfactory. The enlarger, a venerable Omega B-8, is just used as a light source. The resulting prints were scanned on a Canon MG6300 flatbed using VueScan and minimal adjustments.

The official WPPD submission should appear at this link.