Hi Cath,

I saw your question about pinhole paper negs 'lacking in contrast' in this weeks AP question page and it prompted me to sign into the forum after yonks away.

I too am doing a project on pinhole bits especially homemade cameras using paper rather than film negs, of which I'm giving a talk to my camera club about in November.

My exposures are still a bit all over the place but none of my negatives have lacked contrast. They've all had good black and whites. I use RC Ilford MG - the matt type finish (not pearl or gloss) to avoid bouncing light about inside the pinhole camera and I use fresh chemicals each time.

I couldn't see it mentioned but are all of your cameras painted black inside? One poster said lack of contrast would be due to defraction because the pinhole is so small but I don't think this is the case as I've had no problems so think it could maybe be the lack of black paint and there the light would bounce about inside the camera reducing the contrast. If you have painted, I'd then say it would probably be old chemicals.

I need to update my website but I'll try and put a couple of my first efforts, both negs and positives (no where near as good as your's yet) on my pinhole page for you to look at:

http://www.terrysmallbone.co.uk/page15.html

Let me know about the black paint.

Terry