Pinhole beginner - help needed...

[mdohoney]

When I made oatmeal carton (cardboard) cameras I found that, in spite of sealing the base, covering the lid with contact paper and painting the inside black I still had leaks. I solve it by giving each carton an aluminum foil 'bonnet'.

It's possible to determine the size of a pinhole by using a scanner. I copied the following from a thread on the f295 website (http://f295.tompersinger.com) It was posted by Dvoracek.

"Put in on the scanner, set the resolution to the highest it will go, select as little area around the pinhole as possible and scan. Once you have the scan, look at it at 100%, 1:1, or Actual Pixels., enlarging it to 200 per cent doesn't hurt.

I you're using photoshop or photoshops elements, crop it down to just the hole itself, using select, cut, paste and then look at Image Size under the Image menu and it will tell you what size it is."

Once you get the size of your pinhole the calculators linked to the f295 site are quite useful.

[Nige]

I've used the scanner method but I didn't get a distinct cut off point (where the pixels go white to black... there were lots of grey ones even when bumping the contrast during scanning. Maybe scanning as line-art would fix that but at the time I didn't think of that and was too eager to try the pinhole out anyway) so had to guess a bit, not that it really matters as you'll still need to experiment with the final exposure anyway.

Ummm, I don't think that paragraph would pass a grammer checker!

[Nige]

Too short of an exposure most likely.

oops, just re-read your original description again at some other site and I must have read it wrong the 1st time. So, I'll amend this to, most likely a light leak! The paper gets blacker with more exposure. The rest (f-stop, paper speed, etc) stands as a method to determine likely exposures.

[elangovans]

I am kinda convinced that the cause could have been the light leak. Overall, I learned a lot but of course got confused a lot too. Did not think this would get this complecated. well... should go back to the clean slate. :-) and start fresh, I guess.

Elangs

[elangovans]

Thanks all you guys. Here is what I have come back with. I tried agian yesterday... I scanned the negative and inverted using PS.

I know this is no where near to perfect, however, here is for you to view and comment it. I think, there is still some light leak or some issues in the picture.

Thanks
Elangs.

[elangovans]

Forgot to mention... this is picture of the swimming pool. The things that are shown up here are the rails in the swimming pool...

[smieglitz]

Thanks all you guys. Here is what I have come back with. I tried agian yesterday... I scanned the negative and inverted using PS.

I know this is no where near to perfect, however, here is for you to view and comment it. I think, there is still some light leak or some issues in the picture.

Thanks
Elangs.

This looks very mottled and I suspect part of that could be the result of a light leak through the camera material or exposing through the wrong side of the paper as mentioned earlier. But, it appears to me that the development is also very uneven and I suspect that much of the mottling is coming from poor development technique. How long was your development? Also, it looks like there is a development line meandering through the image from not immersing it in developer quick enough. Be sure to give the image full development with constant agitation.

Is the paper you are using outdated? That could be another factor in the overall grayness/fog and mottled appearence.

[John Bartley]

Thanks all you guys. Here is what I have come back with. I tried agian yesterday... I scanned the negative and inverted using PS.

I know this is no where near to perfect, however, here is for you to view and comment it. I think, there is still some light leak or some issues in the picture.

Thanks
Elangs.

Ok - call me a wierd nut, but....that almost looks like multiple, enderexposed images to me.
I can see a wrought iron fence if I look hard enough and once I am told what it is supposed to be, but what I see first and without suggestion, is a bridge in the upper half of the photo, and a face in the centre, with the mouth in the bottom centre.
Below the bridge and in what looks like a background is a cityscape?

Oooh - I gotta see what I put in my coffee this morning......

[mark]

Looks like serious fogging to me. You never said what the material you made this from was. Was it card board or metal. I would spray both flat black in side as, if I remember the inside of the one metal oatmeal tin I have seen it was a copper color. Copper will reflect light and have it bouncing all over the inside of your camera.

[Donald Qualls]

I'm in agreement here -- the long curved line across the sheet, especially, is almost certainly due to getting into the developer unevenly. Also, is it possible you pulled the paper after a lot less than the full development time (typically 2 minutes in Dektol 1:2, 68 F)? That will give a muddy appearance, where the shadows (or in the case of a paper negative, the highlights) aren't fully developed and are gray instead of black. And you have a lot of fog -- for which others have made good suggestions.

The mottling looks very much like an effect I once saw when trying to contact print paper to paper to get a negative print, caused by variations in the density of the paper and/or the reflective backing behind the emulsion. Is it remotely possible you could have exposed the backing side of the paper, instead of the emulsion side? Under safelight, most papers are glossier on the emulsion side, but a few matte surface RC papers are actually shinier on the back...