Week 22: park panorama

So not too long ago I picked up a new toy. A Holga 120 WPC wide angle panoramic pinhole camera (read a review on it here). It created either a 6cm x 9cm negative or a wider angle 6cm X 12cm negative. Not really sure what would happen if you didn't use the mask, but that'll be an experiment for another day.

I used the widest mask, so my negatives came out to be roughly 12cm long, or around twice as wide as my regular Holga shots.

To frame the shot you use a V-like guide on the top of the camera. It's just there to give you an idea of what the field of view is, and how much of the scene in front of you will be caught on film. Also, there's a spirit level built into the frame to help you stay true to your horizon.

The first attempts brought me through Boston Common to try to capture some of the sights there. Since it's a pinhole camera and I don't have a handheld light meter I had to guess on the exposures, holding down the cable release to a 5 count or so. There are guidelines on the back of the camera: 7-9 seconds in bright conditions shooting ISO 100 for example. These are a good place to start.

Since it's a bit of a guessing game on the exposures I kept with negative film, hoping it would would be more forgiving than slide film. And here's the first test shot, which happens to be this week's photo:

And there's just one outtake for the week, a shot of the frog pond:

While it's not the easiest camera to shoot with, it could make some great images in the right setting. I've got a location I've been wanting to take pictures of at dawn, and it's a rolling landscape - this might be the perfect camera to captuer it with. We'll see...