Pinhole Lomo LCA

I recently made a couple of paper pinhole Lomo LCA cameras using a template I downloaded from the Lomography site. Follow the link to read the full account of how I made the pinhole camera.

I initially made one camera and tested it out. I have two packs of Agfa Multicontrast paper (gloss) from the days when I used a wet dark room and whilst this paper probably is not the best choice for this task, at least the paper is being used after languishing in my garage for almost five years.

The first two images I took can be seen below.
This is a test shot of my living room with a 15 minute exposure. The paper was developed in Rodinal 1:10 solution for 5 minutes and then scanned onto my mac. This is where one of the disadvantages of using glossy paper becomes apparent as it reflects some of the scanner light back.

The camera gives a nice panoramic negative which needed a hell of alot of photoshop work to retouch it and also remove the glare from the scanner.

My second shot was of me at my computer.
The exposure time was 30 minutes and the image was processed in the same way as the first. One tip I can give is to handle the negatives very gently when developing them. the paper seems to scratch very easy and it's a nightmare to retouch on Photoshop.

Since then I have had a couple more attempts using all three cameras that I made but these unfortunately have been failures. I tried to take some night shots on the night of the winter solstice with a twelve hour exposure - but there must have been a hell of a reciprocity failure as the negatives hardly captured any detail.

I also messed around with two and three hour exposures during the day time - but I suppose I should have realised this would not work.

I have been intrigued by Justin Quinnell's work taking six month exposures and I thought these cameras might be ideal for trying something similar. I currently have one of the cameras set up over a flower pot with tulips. I want to capture the bulbs bursting through the soil, flowering and then dying back on one exposure which I think would be quite an interesting variation on the 6 month exposure. The camera is loaded with the Agfa multicontrast paper and I have no idea whether I will get a usable image.

According to Justin, you don't have to develop the paper with chemicals, just stick it in the scanner and hey presto. I'll be sure to post the results here as well as any other images I take.

If anybody has advice they can give me or wants to leave a comment or swap links, let me know!