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Showing posts with the label pinhole

Hastings and alternative camera techniques - pinhole and Lensbaby

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Holga make a plastic pinhole lens available in both Nikon and Canon fit. Here are a very few pictures I took using it on the beach in Hastings. The pier was facing directly into the sun which gave some lovely light effects on the water. I took a very light tripod to use just with this lens as t really not enough light gets onto the sensor to be able to hand hold the camera At the end there is also one picture taken using the Lensbaby 35mm optic. I only used this a few times as I found that I preferred the Holga lenses in this particular scenario.

Ingleton waterfalls

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I visited Ingleton in Yorkshire and 'did' the waterfall walk, although  I hadn't suspected before I got there that the walk would have all been paved and that the views would have barriers around them (also that I would have to pay for entry). The next day I did half of it in the reverse direction - you don't have to pay if you go in at the end unless you come out at the beginning. The last falls, Beezley to Snow, are much more dramatic and run through a deep, dark, moss laden gorge. I split the days so that the first I took mostly conventional pictures and the second I also used other techniques. I must confess that I didn't get as much out of it as I would have liked, but here are some of the pictures. The fuzzy ones are done with a pinhole lens, there is one 'self portrait' of my shadow and the last two are a monochrome conversion and a channel swop conversion of an image taken with a 720nm infrared filter. There is one ICM image, no prizes for guessing ...

Late afternoon at Fowlmere

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With a belated sigh of relief we took shelter from Christmas for a couple of hours in Fowlmere bird reserve. I now think that the word reserve is applicable to the birds as they were nowhere to be seen apart from 2 moorhens and 3 mallards. Alan saw a green woodpecker fly past but I was looking the other way at the time! I did take some photographs though. The latter ones were snapped with the Holga pinhole lens.

More ICM and pinhole effects

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I had a weekend in the southern Lake District. There is a small hill, Gummers How, which overlooks Windermere and we went there for a walk. I now have 2 pinhole lenses. One is an adaptor for the Lensbaby and the other a cheap plastic Holga lens which I bought for around £15.00 (joy). The exposure varies with light levels but is normally long enough for a tripod to be needed. It is not always possible to see what you are taking with the pinhole as the viewfinder is too dark, so I usually set the shot up using a 50mm lens and then swop over. I set the exposure to manual for the pinhole and then try different times for the shot. Obviously you do not need to adjust focus The first few are from Gummers How and are mainly taken using intentional camera movement, moving up and down or zooming while taking the shot. The last 4 are of Dallam Chase in Milnthorpe, the last 3 are the ones where I have used the pinhole. There are a couple of 'normal' pictures of the same sort of views. ...

In the woods

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I have been spending a little time in a small wood fairly close to the house. These pictures were taken in October before the leaves had really turned, on a dullish day which is easier for taking pictures through the trees. A couple were also taken using the pinhole lens after I had taken the same view with a 50mm lens - so compare and contrast! I quite like the smudgy vignetted effect of the pinhole.

In camera effects

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I was encouraged by watching Doug Chinnery's video from 'On Landscape' (a great publication - unlike any other magazine) to go out and try some things for myself. Doug explains that it takes a large number of pictures to get anything truly satisfactory from ICM (intentional camera movement) technique but I did get one I liked from this first foray. I also have a pinhole adapter for my Lensbaby and I used this to get some different effects. I do not know that I have the heart at the moment to try film pinhole. But this does give a very special finish. With such an output of superb, perfectly sharp from front to back, landscape photographs, it is refreshing to do something a bit different. Also the lack of clarity lends a certain aura to the photograph. The third picture had also been edited in Snapseed (picture 4) to add some texture, although I am building up a good library of my own textures so that I can use these instead of an off the shelf solution.