Pinhole Photography

[.francesca]

receiving a lomography newsletter promoting its new diy pinhole camera prompted me to post here about pinholes. even though i'm an "experimental" photographer (i use a lot of crappy old toy cameras, etc) i've never made a pinhole, and i have a good idea for one - maybe it will be a summer project!

partial email from news@thelomographer, which is the www.lomography.com mailing list.
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ABOUT PINHOLES[/FONT]

[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif] A pinhole camera has no lens. In its place is an extremely small aperture (f/138 for the Zero Image Pinhole's) through which exterior light is projected onto sensitive film or paper. A lens functions by collecting the light rays outside, inverting them, and focusing them into a smaller image. A pinhole does not focus at all. It merely acts as a "center of projection" inverting the light rays without re–organizing them. The size of the inverted image depends on the distance of the pinhole to the projection surface – a closer distance yields a smaller image and vice–versa. As the hole is not truly a point, it allows more than only one ray from the subject to register on the film. This imparts a characteristic "soft focus" effect. Moreover, as the light is not altered, the pinhole has nearly unlimited depth of field, with reasonably close objects registering at the same sharpness as far away objects (okay, REALLY close objects will be blurred!). As the pinhole is so tiny, it yields a wide–angle focal view and reproduces true geometrical lines, unlike the usual curved effect of a wide–angle lens. It also requires a fairly long exposure time – about 2 seconds in bright sunlight!



and here is an extensive history of pinholes: http://www.photo.net/learn/pinhole/pinhole

and a pinhole day! http://www.pinholeday.org/


[/FONT] if anyone has made a pinhole, share your stories! i'm excited to try my idea, it involves very little building and will be small and portable enough for trial-and-error.

pinhole

 

[Whitelinen]

Is this a tiny bit like the Camera Obscura? The technique I mean? I don't know anything about photographing, so I can be wrong...

This seems interesting! Thanks for the pictures, they are good!I like the fact that they don't focus on anything.

 

[pocodolce]

Wow!!! this is just like my webcam that has a broken lens....

 

[.francesca]

white linen - this is EXACTLY like camera obscura, except that camera obscura didn't use film, only light and darkness and shapes etc...but it's the same basic principle.

pocodolce - i think that's a safe comparison thought it might be the other way around...

 

[.francesca]

here are a few more links:

http://www.pinholephotography.org/

http://www.pinhole.com/

http://www.pinhole.org/

 

[titania]

Ooohhh, aaahhh . I'm very interested in pinhole cameras - thanks for making this thread .f !! Those photos are just gorgeous !! fourboltmain sent me a couple of links a while ago and hopefully, he's gonna help me make one .

http://www.pinhole.org/make/build.cfm
http://pinhole.tegenlicht.com/design360.htm
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/consumer/education/lessonPlans/pinholeCamera/pinholeCanBox.shtml
http://www.foundphotography.com/PhotoThoughts/archives/2005/10/medium_format_p.html

 

[fourboltmain]

You're evil aqua. You stole my links! I have more, I'll dig them up.

Ever seen a Lego camera? *winks*

 

[titania]

Me?? Evil??



I'm not being very helpful but, I thought I'd mention that a few of the polaroids that I posted in the Polaroid thread were taken by pinhole cameras..... Here are a few new ones.

Eirik Holmøyvik

Image Name: Unique Rock Shape
Film Type: 55 Film
Process/Technique: Positive/Negative
Camera: Zero pinhole camera

Image Name: Farm By The Sea
Film Type: 55 Film
Process/Technique: Positive/Negative
Camera: Zero pinhole camera

Image Name: Two Poles
Film Type: 55 Film
Process/Technique: Positive/Negative
Camera: Zero pinhole camera

Image Name: Glowing Rock
Film Type: 55 Film
Process/Technique: Positive/Negative
Camera: Zero pinhole camera

And you can even buy a Polaroid Pinhole Photo Kit.

www.polaroid.com

 

[Tinetush]

Tanks for the thread .f I can't wait to see more. . .

 

[.francesca]

alright tine, you asked for it!

from pinholephotography.org:

here are some that this guy took from inside his mouth!

 

[valerique]

This is photographer Veneta Zaharieva. She uses tins and boxes

source: www.venetazaharieva.com

 

[valerique]

 

[pocodolce]

hmm... i'm not sure if i get this idea... but... do u need a special camera to do this??? if so.. what do they look like and where can i get it??

btw.. all these images are amazing!!!

 

[.francesca]

valerique, i LOVE that work you posted

pocodolce, a pinhole is a camera you can make out of pretty much anything. all you need is some unexposed film or paper, some sort of enclosed box or cylinder (like a coffee can), and patience

here are some links to DIY pinholes:

http://www.pinhole.org/
http://www.cyberbeach.net/~dbardell/pinhole.html
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/consumer/education/lessonPlans/pinholeCamera/
http://www.exploratorium.edu/light_walk/camera_todo.html

some of these are super detailed, but it's really easy to make this camera..and you're never sure of the results but that's 100% of the fun!

 

[Tinetush]

.f thanks, you.
the pis taken from that guys mouth is genious, also a bit yucky though

 

[valerique]

some more

http://www.pinhole.nl/people/bethgoesbald.jpg

 

[valerique]

http://www.ospreydesign.com/foreword/archives/irelandyard.jpg

 

[valerique]

http://www.f1point4.com/photos/uncategorized/qm_promenadedecktable.jpg

 

[valerique]

lovely

http://www.f1point4.com/photos/uncategorized/faerie2.jpg

 

[valerique]

http://www.f1point4.com/photos/uncategorized/faerie1.jpg