Continuing the Mushroom topic...

[Barry Kirsten]

Maris's previous thread prompted this, and given the recent interest in mushrooms in Victoria: a pinhole shot of pink fly agaric ca. 2016. The film was Kodak 7627 5x12 dental panorama film exp. 2009 and probably developed in PMK. This is s double-sided emulsion film and consequently a little bit soft, but I find it quite nice all the same.

The camera has a 0.5mm laser drilled electron microscope aperture placed at 135mm from the film plane, giving a speed of f/270. The film plane is curved, equidistant from the aperture across the film width. There is vertical rise/fall on the pinhole to compensate for curvature of horizon when the camera is pointed up or down. This shot could have used a bit of rise to compensate from the slight downward pointing, although the camera was fairly close to ground level. The camera is the one on the left in this pic of some of my recent handiwork.

My apologies for the rough 'scan' which was done hand-held with an old Nikon D80.

[Maris]

Good one, Barry Kirsten! The curved film plane on your camera works really well to prevent the edges of the format falling into black.
I've seen it written that one mark of a exceptional pin-hole photograph is that it contains lots of detail just within the resolving power of the pin-hole itself. Those white dots on the mushroom caps are a excellent example of that principle.
I gotta ask, are those the notorious hallucinogenic mushrooms that claim victims every year?

[Barry Kirsten]

Hi Maris,
Yes, they're Amanita muscaria, the famous hallucinogen. I lived where those ones were growing for five years and was tempted each year to have a nibble, but being cautious never did.

[Mick Fagan]

Pretty good picture there Barry, also a nice camaraderie of cameras there.

One shudders at the thought of heading to the dentist and noticing that they were loading up a panoramic dental film camera; open wide!!!!