Inspired by my recent re-excursion into pinhole photography, I expanded my vision by making a photographic slit and heading out to make some photos.
An optical slit works similarly to a pinhole but with much more abstract results. I made my slit by drilling a hole in a plastic body cap for my Sony camera and then arranging two pieces of a single edge razor blade (a very thin sheet of metal is required) in the hole such that they are separated by a very narrow gap (i.e. the photographic slit).
Mounting a slit (or a pinhole) on a mirror-less camera such as the Sony provides an experience completely different than that had with a digital SLR or a film camera. Since mirror-less cameras use an electronic viewfinder (which is showing exactly what the camera’s sensor sees) rather than an optical one, one gets are pretty accurate (minus any processing in the computer) view of the final image.
With the older camera technology both composition and exposure were something of a ‘crap shoot’, this is not so with a mirror-less camera. This is particularly useful when photographing with a slit since the image is very dependent on angle of the slit in relation to the subject. Long thin subjects aligned parallel to the slit are almost recognizable and every thing else is most distinctly not!
