What is a pinhole camera?

Until this week I didn’t really know much about pinhole camera’s, ok I knew they were one of the first types of camera’s and very basic using a hole instead of a lens. But I had no idea what the photographs looked like or how you made and used one.

What is a pinhole camera?

It is the simplest of image making devices, it’s basically a light tight box with a small hole in one end, on the opposite side of the box is photographic film or paper which records the image (or light) that passes through the hole. Due to the way in which light behaves the image appears up side down on the back side of the box. I heard about them from the Photography 101 course I am following on the Digital Photography School blog which I talked about in my last post.

So how do you make one?

I had an image in my head of a pinhole camera being very old and made out of polished wood! I was amazed when I found out they are used widely today and can be made out of just about any kind of box or can. So much for what I know! There are loads of great pinhole images on flickr if you want to see what they look like.

You can buy kits that you can build yourself which sounds kind of cool, I like the idea of making a camera from scratch and then taking photos with it. And there are loads of different kits around to choose from. Take a look at these examples, pinhole camera kits.

Or you can make one from scratch out of household things, people have made pinhole cameras out of coffee tins, cereal boxs, cookie tins by the sound of it pretty much anything. Take a look:

Oatmeal box pinhole camera
Pinhole polaroid camera
Pringles pinhole camera

This is definitely the hands on technique, but I’m not sure about working out (and getting it right) the exposure time by measuring the size of the hole against the distance from the hole to the film. It sounds like a little bit of trial and error, but that’s what this type of photography is all about doing it completely from scratch, and knowing you really did create the image!

I never considered using a pinhole camera before, but I’m really interested to have a go now!

Mandy

Did you like this article? Then please subscribe to my RSS Feed!

Tweet This Post Delicious Digg This Post Stumble This Post