# Kickstarter: Pinhole Pro S | World's Widest Professional Pinhole Lens



## Canon Rumors Guy (Nov 22, 2017)

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<strong>From Thingyfy:

</strong>Since the original success of the Pinhole Pro, our backers have been asking us to release a wide angle version of the professional pinhole lens. We heard you, loud and clear!</p>
<p>Today we are happy to announce two new wide angle lenses to the Pinhole Pro family: the <b>Pinhole Pro S11</b> (11mm) and <b>Pinhole Pro S37</b> (37mm).</p>
<p>Pinhole photography predates any form of modern photography as the most fundamental form of photographic art. The forerunner to the photographic camera was the camera obscura — a permeative photographic device with no lens but a single pinhole aperture.</p>
<p>Contemporary cameras use state-of-the-art lenses, mirrors, mounts, AF/MF techniques, and endlessly higher pixel density to deliver amazing images, but those images are too life-like, lacking the charm of raw, naturally vintage look of pinhole photos boasting the most original saturated colours.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32271" src="http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/b54bc21d122647c347e0d2897f4a8dc8_original.gif" alt="" width="680" height="382" /></p>
<p>Pinhole is photography in its most original form. However, achieving that unforgettable photographic aesthetics requires high precision engineering and modern state of the art manufacturing technologies. With so many sub-par quality options on the market, as well as the ability for anyone to build their own, we saw an opportunity to not only build a pinhole lens that’s beautiful with exceptional build quality, but also with precision engineering and rich inputs from the photographers and cinematographers themselves — the result was the world’s first ever multi-aperture professional pinhole lens that supports virtually all modern digital cameras with interchangeable lenses.</p>


<p>In the early 20th century, the development of high speed films and mass production of glass lens almost made pinhole photography forgotten. It’s a lost art form, only to be kept alive by the few enthusiasts.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32273" src="http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/4d063cb6d14cea8859f75d8f030c1a6c_original.png" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/4d063cb6d14cea8859f75d8f030c1a6c_original.png 680w, http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/4d063cb6d14cea8859f75d8f030c1a6c_original-225x150.png 225w, http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/4d063cb6d14cea8859f75d8f030c1a6c_original-338x225.png 338w, http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/4d063cb6d14cea8859f75d8f030c1a6c_original-610x406.png 610w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /></p>
<p>Photographers turned to the endless pursuit of sharpness, resolution and speed. That trend still dominates today. However many photographers like yourself have started to realize that high resolution and high specs can not replace the authenticity of analogue photography that’s more personal, original, unfiltered with a timeless ‘point of view’. Pinhole photography provides exactly that. After all it is the closest to what a human eye can see.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://538983.kckb.st">Read more about the Pinhole Pro S at Kickstarter</a></strong></p>
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## Robert Marxreiter (Dec 15, 2017)

"After all it is the closest to what a human eye can see" - I'm sure it's a nice pinhole, but equating that to the lensed human eye is just ignorant marketing babble.


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## Ryananthony (Dec 15, 2017)

How long before the makers of this lens find their way to the forum?


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## slclick (Dec 15, 2017)

Now, if it came with a free KURVD...


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## IglooEater (Dec 15, 2017)

“Pinhole is photography in its most original form. However, achieving that unforgettable photographic aesthetics requires high precision engineering and modern state of the art manufacturing technologies.”

Really now... here I was thinking it just required a pinhole... :

“ high resolution and high specs can not replace the authenticity of analogue photography that’s more personal, original, unfiltered with a timeless ‘point of view’. Pinhole photography provides exactly that.”

Now how exactly does a lensless lense make my digital camera analogue?


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## slclick (Dec 15, 2017)

IglooEater said:


> “Pinhole is photography in its most original form. However, achieving that unforgettable photographic aesthetics requires high precision engineering and modern state of the art manufacturing technologies.”
> 
> Really now... here I was thinking it just required a pinhole... :
> 
> ...



There may be one hole in each lens but there are many holes in their marketing mumbo jumbo.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Dec 15, 2017)

I'll bet that professional photographers are using it in droves.


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## slclick (Dec 15, 2017)

I made my pinhole out of a Beats Earphone box


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## neonlight (Dec 16, 2017)

Great! Looks just like those pinhole camera shots of old ;D


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## LDS (Dec 16, 2017)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> I'll bet that professional photographers are using it in droves.



One of the few I know who uses the pinhole technique is Abelardo Morell - but he turns whole rooms in a true "camera obscura" with a simple hole, and photographs the result. He's also added later a lens and a prism to make images clearer and straight.

Anyway lenses and mirrors were added to "camerae obscurae" well before the invention of photography. Professional painters needed clearer and straight images as well.

Actually, with slow emulsions, a lens helps to reduce exposure, allowing more light to be collected. While Niepce could wait hours (or days) for his first photography, Daguerre probably couldn't, if he was looking for a practical usage. History of photography would have been quite different if a camera obscura didn't have a lens already in the early XIX century.


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## retroreflection (Dec 16, 2017)

Make fun all you want, but a pinhole lens has unique capabilities.
When the Dr. No opening title sequence needed to show James Bond framed by the inside of a pistol barrel, a pinhole lens' infinite depth of field allowed for a clear image of the rifling. It worked a treat.


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## IglooEater (Dec 17, 2017)

retroreflection said:


> Make fun all you want, but a pinhole lens has unique capabilities.
> When the Dr. No opening title sequence needed to show James Bond framed by the inside of a pistol barrel, a pinhole lens' infinite depth of field allowed for a clear image of the rifling. It worked a treat.



I don’t think folks are laughing at the concept of pinhole so much as at a company that claims it requires high precision engineering and state of the art manufacturing to achieve...


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## Valvebounce (Dec 17, 2017)

Hi Folks. 
I am not trying to justify the claims made by this company, I am just wondering about the science of the pinhole. 
Is it a case of the sharper the edge the less distortion it will cause? Is a very clean hole pierced in very thin foil going to give sharper results than a bit of cereal box stabbed with a blunt sewing needle? Perhaps the hole in foil would work better if done with a laser, the melted edge might then have a very small radius or would this be detrimental to the image? 

Cheers, Graham.


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## slclick (Dec 17, 2017)

Valvebounce said:


> Hi Folks.
> I am not trying to justify the claims made by this company, I am just wondering about the science of the pinhole.
> Is it a case of the sharper the edge the less distortion it will cause? Is a very clean hole pierced in very thin foil going to give sharper results than a bit of cereal box stabbed with a blunt sewing needle? Perhaps the hole in foil would work better if done with a laser, the melted edge might then have a very small radius or would this be detrimental to the image?
> 
> Cheers, Graham.



The smoothness of the hole is paramount. In my two examples above the holes were punched through thick card stock, not very clean at all. I have made apertures with metal in pinholes cams and they tend to be much crisper.


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## Valvebounce (Dec 17, 2017)

Hi Folks. 
Reading all this reminds me that I was going to try a pinhole, I have read about people using a spare body cap for this. 
Anyone done this?
Does this work well enough?
What size hole is best?
Do I give the hole a small chamfer or leave the edge as sharp as possible? 
Yes I can put the hole in the middle! 

I have a couple of cheap after market caps to use for this so a couple of attempts are possible!

Cheers, Graham.


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## AlanF (Dec 17, 2017)

Graham
You got me thinking about this, but I am sure it is the school textbooks of the 19th century. Straight out of my head and it could be very wrong, I intuit the following.

A hole through a thick sheet will cause a small exit pupil and huge vignetting as the light has to pass through a tunnel, and the light rays going straight through will be OK but those at an angle will hit the sides. So, the ideal pinhole should have just atomic thickness at the edges and you should chamfer the edges to give the angle of entry you want.

The next problem is the diameter of the hole. If you want to optimise resolution you have to balance two effects; the size of the hole and diffraction. The sensor will not be able to resolve objects closer than the diameter of the hole so you want the hole to be small. But, the smaller the hole, the greater of Airy disk of diffraction. My intuition is that optimal resolution at the centre of the sensor is when the diameter of the hole is equal to the diameter of the Airy disk. (And this resolution is at the centre but gets worse to the edges.) If d is the diameter of the hole, and the wavelength of the light is L, and the distance to the sensor is F, using standard formulae, 1.22LF/d = d. Using a flange-sensor distance of 44mm for the EF mount and 400nm light, this gives d = 0.146mm, which leads to an f-number of 300. 

You might wish to lower resolution by having a wider hole to reduce exposure time.

A 0.146mm hole with the effects of the size of hole on the two aspects of resolution, would give an effective pixel size of about 0.2mm. So, a 24x36mm sensor would have an effective resolution of about 22kpx, not too dissimilar from the first Casio digicam.

Please correct me if I am wrong.


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## Valvebounce (Dec 18, 2017)

Hi Alan. 
Wow, thanks! 
I have no idea if you are wrong, but I’m not sure I have long enough for an f300 exposure, (how many stops past f22 is that, 3 and a bit?) should give lovely smooth water and clouds! Also I think my drill sets stop at 1/16” and 1mm respectively, my specialist drill assortment may get to somewhere around number 68-72. I might have to try piercing the hole with a bit of 0.6mm (no 73) welding wire with an edge dressed on to it! ???  If that is too big I’ll just have to leave it for now! 

Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed response, much appreciated. 

Cheers, Graham. 



AlanF said:


> Graham
> You got me thinking about this, but I am sure it is the school textbooks of the 19th century. Straight out of my head and it could be very wrong, I intuit the following.
> 
> A hole through a thick sheet will cause a small exit pupil and huge vignetting as the light has to pass through a tunnel, and the light rays going straight through will be OK but those at an angle will hit the sides. So, the ideal pinhole should have just atomic thickness at the edges and you should chamfer the edges to give the angle of entry you want.
> ...


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## AlanF (Dec 18, 2017)

Your drills would seem to too big, though I have some watchmakers tiny ones. You could try punching through with a needle. But, better still, you could drill a 3 mm hole or so in the centre of the body cap, stick some thin black tape over that and poke a needle through the centre. That way, you would have a thinner membrane, easier to punch through, and you could quickly change it to try different sized pinholes.

Hey, let's use Kickstarter to set up a company to sell the kit.


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## Valvebounce (Dec 18, 2017)

Hi Alan. 
Thanks for the heads up on the size, I have just remembered I have a tin with some special bits, a couple of tiny ball bearings, some custom hand made tool-steel boring tips and an assortment of tiny drills. No idea how small they go, I will report back later. If I don’t have a suitable drill I will have to see about getting one after the festive season. 
Just a thought, but if I drill the hole a bit off centre will I have a fixed ‘shift’ lens? ??? 

Cheers, Graham. 



AlanF said:


> Your drills would seem to too big, though I have some watchmakers tiny ones. You could try punching through with a needle. But, better still, you could drill a 3 mm hole or so in the centre of the body cap, stick some thin black tape over that and poke a needle through the centre. That way, you would have a thinner membrane, easier to punch through, and you could quickly change it to try different sized pinholes.
> 
> Hey, let's use Kickstarter to set up a company to sell the kit.


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