My latest acquisition in my panoramic explorations is a 6×17 pinhole camera from RealitySoSubtle (RSS). It’s anything but subtle. From its black, boxy exterior with no fewer than four chunky silver clips to the massive negatives it produces the RSS 6×17 screams “look at me!”
Quoting from the website, the RealitySoSubtle 6×17 is a dual pinhole/shutter curved film plane 6×17 panoramic pinhole camera that uses 120 film. The dual pinhole allows for the horizon to be placed on the upper or lower third of the frame, although what exactly comprises the horizon is dependant on the level that your camera is at. I regularly use a pinhole low down to the floor so for my test roll I popped the camera on a mini tripod and headed to my front yard and a much-photographed bench.
Whilst I was deciding whether or not to buy the RSS6x17 I got into a discussion with John Farnan on Twitter. I’d originally intended to buy the “F” version which has one, centrally positioned, pinhole with a filter ring. I use contrast filters a lot in my black & white photography so it was a logical choice for me. However, I had underestimated the power of a dual pinhole camera, a fact that John was quick to point out! He also shared some images to prove his point and so I found myself emailing RSS to amend my order!
The two images above demonstrate the benefits of the dual pinhole quite nicely. The top version is using the top pinhole and the bottom using … yup the bottom pinhole! A powerful tool to add to my compositional armoury.
Of course, with the negatives on the light pad I quickly saw the opportunity for combining the two negatives for some added real estate (look at the two pictures above again). By stitching the two images together in Photoshop (other photo-software is available) I created a 2×1 image which still kept the 141° horizontal field of view but brought the foreground back too giving what I would estimate as a 60° vertical field of view, for another take on the scene. Despite only four frames per roll I can see me experimenting with this a fair bit initially. However, John assures me I will quickly default to the top pinhole 90% of the time!
I think that me and this pinhole camera are going to be emptying my wallet of beer tokens at an alarming rate over the next few months! I probably should set up a KoFi account! 🙂
Dave's Place 
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