Shooting Medium Format Pinhole.

I'd like to quickly talk about a new camera I recently purchased. It's a Zero Image 2000 'Back to Nature' series handmade collectable wooden pinhole camera. I used one a few years ago owned by an artist I knew in university and since then I've always thought about buying one of my own.

The cameras come in different formats from 35mm, 120 6x6, 6x9, 6x12 6x18 & Large Format 4x5 & 8x10. The cameras are handmade in Hong Kong. The company was founded in 1999 by pinhole enthusiast Zernike Au, who had been a successful product designer for more than fifteen years before he made the first Zero Image cameras.

When you order on the website, it takes a little time to get your head around all of the pages, especially if you're wanting added extras. The basic camera comes as a standard box with shutter and to be honest it's relatively cheap at $116 considering the build quality & craftsmanship, not to mention the quality of image it produces, but if you're like me you'll want to add some extras!!

Knowing I'm going to have this camera for many years to come, and maybe pass it down to future generations I decided to add the option for a name engraved plate seen above, this costs an extra $45. You can also see I bought the cable release adaptor for the simple reason of having used one before (that didn't have the adaptor) and always using a shutter release cable on my Bronica, it makes shooting much more comfortable and it also saves you having to handle the camera too much when it's mounted on your tripod. This is an extra I'd recommend to anyone thinking about buying the Zero2000 camera and costs an added $59 (you save $12 shipping and handling if buying with the camera too).

You can also buy extras including a bubble level, filter adaptor, extra/spare pinholes, edge protectors and other little parts but for me personally, the cable release adaptor was enough. My first roll of film was shot at night using Kodak Portra 400ISO. The aperture of the camera is f 138 so shutter times were between 1:40 & 2 minutes. The second and third rolls, also Portra 400 were shot during the day, one indoors at shutter times between 30s and 1 minute, and another outdoors in bright sunshine where shutter speeds were 1/1.6 - 1/2 a second or in shaded areas 1.6 - 2.5 seconds. The camera comes with an exposure scale on the back, so you can use a modern light meter and work out the exposure times accordingly but I find the quickest and surprisingly accurate way is to use one of several light meter apps available on smart phones.

Below you'll find a small collection of example images shot in my first three rolls of Kodak Portra 400 using the Zero2000 6x6 Back To Nature Series Pinhole Camera. Thanks for reading.