[Douglas.McLernon@tcd.ie: pin holes and news groups]

[pgs@thillana.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro)]

    To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
    From: Douglas McLernon <Douglas.McLernon@tcd.ie>
    Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 22:57:31 GMT

    Don't laugh too much about pin hole cameras. There was a programme
    on the BBC a few weeks ago about a photographer using a 4X5 camera
    with a pin hole aperture exposing ( I think Velvia) for 15-20
    minutes in Venice. The results were truly outstanding. All
    movement -people, boats, and other distractions were not
    recorded. What resulted was an arty (in the best sense of the
    word) ethereal image where the water had motion without form and a
    feeling of the past was clearly presented. I'm not sure that 35mm
    would produce satisfactory results but this old dog (who views
    most "arty" work as phoney art - referred to as pharty work ) with
    a jaundice eye.

This sounds like really neat work, but I find myself wondering if it
could in fact have been Velvia.  The reason I wonder is that I tried
doing some long (up to 10 seconds) exposures on Velvia when
photographing industrial sites on the Great Salt Lake at night (can
you say "mosquitoes"?  Worse than Alaska in June!).  My results
suffered from pronounced color shifts towards green, and it wasn't
just the lighting.  So I wonder why that wouldn't happen with a long
exposure in a pinhole camera.

I've seen some people say Velvia doesn't suffer from reciprocity
failure (see http://atchison.net/gallery/gallery2.htm), but more
people seem to report the same effects I ran into in exposures of
about 10 seconds.