Pinhole camera

Professional pinhole cameras are not toys. Many users think that a pinhole camera is a toy and can be obtained by drilling holes in a shoe box or a tin can. This association must be dispelled, with today's industrial technologies professional pinhole cameras become real analogue cameras.

There are various formats of photographic film, photographs obtained will have a better definition depending on the format of the film used, so the rule is: with large format film we will obtain more defined photographs than those obtained with a small format, this is because large format film has a better apparent resolution, this property should not be confused with the number of lines per millimetre of the film. The apparent resolution depends directly on the surface of the negative obtained, Auloma produces a wide range of pinhole cameras ranging from the Magnificat for large format film 4x5" up to the small Curva-45 for small 35mm film, to orientate the choice according to the apparent resolution these are the values of our cameras:

Many people believe that you cannot take good analogue photographs without the use of a lens, yet the ancestor of all cameras is a pinhole camera. Since the first pinhole camera was invented in the nineteenth century, technology has advanced and the industrial systems for making pinholes are very different from two centuries ago, from using a simple needle to make the hole, to using laser cutting machines or machine tools with high-speed spindles, greatly improving the quality of the pinhole. A well-drilled hole of controlled dimensions and perfect geometry greatly reduces the optical problem of diffraction.

At Auloma, we prefer drilling with high-speed spindles, using tools that produce a pinhole with a conical cross-section that reduces the ripple effect of the light inside it and significantly improves image quality.

With the exception of the Curva-45 camera, all Auloma pinhole cameras can be equipped with a "slot-in" filter holder that has the capacity to install up to three filters simultaneously. The use of filters in pinhole photography has great advantages both when taken in colour and even more so when taken in black and white.

Pinhole cameras are a lens-less device, using a pinhole that allows the light spectrum to pass through unimpeded. Light passing through a pinhole, due to the small size of the hole, is strongly affected by diffraction. When light from a point source passes through a circular hole, it does not produce a luminous dot as an image but a diffuse circle, known as Airy's disk, surrounded by concentric circular rings, so the resolution of the pinhole image depends on diffraction. When you have a professional Auloma camera with quality pinholes, the only way to further reduce the diffraction effect is to use photographic filters that reduce the wavelength of the light. Using green and blue filters will allow light closer to the frequency of the ultraviolet to penetrate the pinhole camera, i.e. smaller and improving resolution. The use of coloured filters, however, is dedicated to black and white photography. This solution, however, reduces the number of effects that can be achieved with photographic filters, excluding the effects that can be achieved with the yellow, orange and red filters. This is partly true, but thanks to our filter holder, which allows you to install up to three filters, you can achieve excellent effects and improve the resolution, one example is the magenta filter, which can be achieved by combining the green filter with the red filter. In this way you can obtain poignant black sky and a pictures with a good resolution.

All photographic filters produced by Auloma are dedicated primarily for their pinhole cameras. They are filters with an anti-UV treatment that prevents ultraviolet light from impressing the negative. Ultraviolet light passing through the pinhole produces a blue tint in colour film or a fog effect in black and white photographs. All Aulomacolor-BW filters neutralise ultraviolet rays, but if you do not want to alter the contrasts and tones of your black and white photographs or if you want to take colour photographs, the transparent anti-UV filter is the ideal solution because it absorbs the ultraviolet rays invisible to the human eye, eliminates the alterations caused by these light rays and does not alter the tones of the resulting image.

The Achilles' heel of all wooden pinhole cameras is the permeability to light, this problem depends on the nature of wood, which is a material sensitive to climatic and temperature variations, expanding or shrinking, opening up even the smallest gaps in the structure that can be penetrated by light, these small cracks, even if they do not produce appreciable overexposure marks on the film, do however produce a slight impression on the film, removing tone and contrast, especially in black and white photographs. The Auloma pinhole cameras are manufactured by a process of moulding special hi-tech resins, the parts thus obtained are strong and unalterable by atmospheric agents as well as variations in temperature, the moulding technique allows us to minimise the number of parts that make up the camera, there are no parts glued together as in wooden pinholes, and the removable parts necessary for the insertion of the film are protected from the entrance of light by deep labyrinths.

Queste sono solo alcune delle caratteristiche che contraddistinguono le nostre pinhole camera, se vuoi vedere in dettaglio ogni specifica tecnica dei nostri modelli guarda la presentazione di tutti i modelli delle nostre pinhole.

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