January 30th, 2012:
I love all things photography and a few weeks ago while trolling through the clearance bin at Bel-Air Camera in Westwood I stumbled across a pinhole lens for my Canon cameras for $1. It is essentially a Canon body cap with a pin sized hole in it, creating a lens similar to a Camera Obscura – it moves a VERY small amount of light through the hole and gives you some semblance of an image. Now, in no way is this at all comparable to my other lenses that are 1000x the cost, but it definitely makes for a fun way to spend an afternoon. After a little testing of the f/181 aperture, I realized to use this handheld at all it had to be an amazingly sunny day and I had to shoot at ISO 1600. Most of these images were created at ISO 1600, f/181, 1/15 sec.
So a few days after buying this new toy we drove up to the Griffith Observatory to show a visiting Singaporean friend the L.A. skyline and the Hollywood sign. It was one of those crisp, clear, blue skied winter days we get in Los Angeles and the perfect chance for me to goof off and create some images for fun.
This little hole has no sharpness, very little contrast (I added a bit to these images), no way to focus, throws flare everywhere, and the aperture is so small I can’t even really see the image I am creating through the viewfinder. It was a lot of guess work and out of the 100 or so images I popped off, these are my favorites.
Mr. James Dean (whose bust at Griffith Observatory has always made very little sense to me)
Awesome fun, but I don’t foresee myself using it all that often. Although it may be added to my backpack while traveling just to change things up.
