Pinhole #1

After my complete failure with a home-made pinhole made from a piece of card and black duct tape, I splashed out and ordered a Holga pinhole body cap on eBay -- you can find them for around 15 euros. It arrived today, so here's the result of my first few experiments. 

Note: what I bought is simply a body cap with a pinhole accurately pierced in the centre. I see Holga also sell actual pinhole lenses, presumably with glass. In fact they have a whole lot of wacky lenses for use with DSLRs.

The first problem with my cheapo version was not being able to see at all through the viewfinder ... makes composition a bit difficult. But using live view on the camera's screen you can at least see the rough shapes of what the camera is pointing at. A few grainy test shots handheld at very high ISO let me figure out what an appropriate exposure time at 100 ISO would be ... out came the tripod. Even then it still looks grainy and there are some odd little artifacts if you zoom in. But then the point isn't to produce a smooth, glossy result!

I'd never have tried this without the Experimental Photography challenge, so thanks Markus!