Pinhole Camera (part 2)
by Adrian Hanft, (2 comments)
A couple weeks ago I described the technology burnout that led me to build a pinhole camera. Once I stripped away the extraneous gadgetry, I was left with a lightproof box with a hole in it. Until I build myself a darkroom, I won’t be able to test this simple machine. Or will I? My vacation from technology was nice, but back to technology I go. It is going to take digital camera technology to test my pinhole camera.
If you have ever built a pinhole camera, you already know the drawbacks of the bare bones design:
- You have to load the camera in the dark.
- You have to guess at the exposure time.
- You have to develop the film/photo paper before you know whether you even got a good exposure.
- You only get one shot before you have to reload.
This is pretty much the opposite of a digital camera because those weaknesses are the main strengths of digital.
- There is no film or light sensitive material to worry about.
- You may still have to guess at exposure times, but if you are wrong, you simply delete the picture and try again.
- You know instantly whether or not you got a good exposure.
- The only limit to how many photos you take is the amount of you can store on your memory card.
If I could add the advantages of digital cameras to my pinhole camera, I would be able to take unlimited photos without a darkroom. In part 3 I will explain how I built the world’s first digital pinhole camera.* As a teaser, you can see my first successful digital pinhole camera photos at FoundPhotography.com.
*My limited research showed that, yes, there are many people using digital pinhole cameras. All you have to do is make a pinhole in a lens cap and attach it to the lens. The design of my digital pinhole camera is somewhat different, as I will explain in part 3. I am not aware of anyone using a pinhole camera design quite like mine.
Comments (2)
Nick said:
While the drawbacks you listed are true of some pinhole designs, they are not inherent to film pinhole photography and can be eliminated.
1) You have to load the camera in the dark.
This is true if you build a single-shot ìbodyî, but this can be eliminated with a film advance mechanism, which will allow you to shoot normal rolls of your preferred film.
You can make one (cut the tip off of a cheap flat-head screw driver and use a rubber bushing as a light seal), modify an existing camera that has a film advance (get a body cap for your existing SLR or rangefinder and mount a pinhole in it (very versatile as you can treat it like just another lens and shoot normal and pinhole on the same roll) or hack a cheap camera like a Holga), or buy a pre-made body (Zero Image makes nice pinhole bodies with film advanceóCalumet seems to have the best price on them).
2) You have to guess at the exposure time.
Öif you make your own pinhole and have to guess at its diameter.
You can get a precision-drilled pinhole with a known diameter and calculate a precise f stop. Using a light meter (or your eyes, see the sunny f/16 rule or the Ultimate Exposure Computer), a stop watch, and the reciprocity data for your film (which usually works out to be something incredibly simpleóe.g. Kodak TMAX 100 is > 10 seconds=+1/2 stop, > 100 seconds=+1 stopónothing you need to carry data sheets for), you can get very good, predictable exposures.
3) You have to develop the film/photo paper before you know whether you even got a good exposure.
Like any [non-Polaroid] film system, you have to develop it before you know if you got an image you like, but if you follow #2, youíll know if you got a good exposure.
Digital obviously rocks film in this regard, but in this case you pay for the convenience with sensor noise (longer exposure=more noise).
4) You only get one shot before you have to reload.
See #1.
Donít get me wrong, I think your digital project is really cool! But if these four things are keeping you back from playing with film and itís something youíre interested in, there are easy ways around them!
Posted on May 3, 2005
Michael Scanlon said:
The “Pinhole Camera” has been around for a very long time- Da Vinci discusses it in his notebooks for instance. The word Camera actually comes from the rennaissance invention, the “camera obscura” or dark room. The pinhole was in a shutter which covered a window. that left the room, camera in italian, dark, and the picture projected on the opposite wall.
This evolved into a painter’s aid in which the image of a scene or model was projected on a ground glass screen which had been squared with reference lines. some say that Vermeer used this technique, and the the quality of being well-what we would call “pixilated” comes from the gound glass panels texture!
The developement of photography in the nineteenth century was really about film, the camera already existed as did the lens.
I find it interesting that digital technology has now removed the film from the equation once again and allows us to look at the process differently. Rather than seeing the digital camera as a substitute for the film camera one can think of it as a new medium. There really are significant differences..
Posted on August 20, 2005