Research & Development

The process of pinhole cameras have helped developed many technologies around today due to the principles of physics they brought about, which gave the initial idea to build on. The earliest discovered principles of pinhole photography came around in 5th Century B.C by a philosopher known as Mo Ti who became aware that objects reflect light in all directions, despite this discovery, no known photographic evidence of the use of a pinhole is recorded. In the Western Hemisphere in 4th Century B.C the writer Aristotle mentioned in his work; "Why is it that an eclipse of the sun, if one looks at it through a sieve or through leaves, such as a plane-tree or other broadleaved tree, or if one joins the fingers of one hand over the fingers of the other, the rays are crescent-shaped where they reach the earth? Is it for the same reason as that when light shines through a rectangular peep-hole, it appears circular in the form of a cone?
This observation remained unexplained until the 16th Century.

Pinhole cameras provided the means to enhance the idea and the principles of light travelling in straight lines and projecting images through small arpetures even convinced Pope Gregory XIII to correct the Julian calendar by ten days, through the use of a bronze ring placed high by a window in his cathedral, which created what was known as a "noon mark" which helped to tell the time of the day in 1580.

Modern cameras today gained the ideas from pinhole cameras, despite many new improvements, the science behind them are still extremely similar. The word camera derives from the latin term; 'Dark chamber' because of the way in which light has to travel through a small arpeture into a dark chamber in order to produce an image.

Analyse

I researched some pinhole camera photographers in order to compare their results to my own and found some very interesting and artistic images.

These are all very well done and deserve further praise because of the fact they are pinhole images. When I compare these results to my own images these photos are in a different league. These images are of a much higher standard due to the way in which they were done. The photographers who took these have very interesting uses of depth of field aswell as view points and surroundings. The top image is done extremely well with the pillars seeming large and somewhat dominant over the camera due to the position in which the pinhole was placed. The top image looks out of shape and somewhat distorted because of the angle the lens was facing and the outcome was a very interesting and unique image.

The middle image clearly had a perfect exposure time as it features natural looking light rather than glaring, over exposed light. The use of the figure in the centre helps make it a very good image aswell as somewhat abstract, the tree hanging over the top of the image gives it a very distinguished look and adds a more natural feel to the somewhat eerie looking building behind it. The pinhole camera was placed on the floor with a straight on view towards the figure, again giving the figure a dominant, independant look.

The bottom image has a beautiful exposure to light, with the shadows on the right creeping into the image, providing an entirely opposite look to the left side of the image where the crops have no shadows. The placement of the camera was done very well with the long and winding path straight in front of the lens, with the corner at the end of the road unseen. It was probably a sunny day with blue skies as the sun is made evident by the distinctive shadow, yet there are quite a few clouds in the sky. It is a very third dimensional looking image because of all of the things featured, e.g. the shadows, the path and the huge tree towards the back in the distance.

These images compared to my own which I've shown further down the page are better on a larger scale as they are done by photographers who had the time to create a very suitable pinhole camera as well as the time to conduct trial and error alongside finding a suitable area to place the camera. The photographers responsible for these knew exactly which exposure times to use in that area on that day, which all contributed to creating beautiful pinhole images.

This is a portrayal of how light hits the photographic paper inside the pinhole camera. Light travels only in straight lines and produces an image upside down to what the camera was exposed to. In the above diagram, A is the distance from the optical centre to the focal plane, which means A is the focal length of the lens.

Process

I created my pinhole camera by using a container that can be made light-proof. In my case, a small orange box that once packaged a phone. I opened up the box and painted three coats of black on the inside. Black must be used as it absorbs the light that will enter the box; other colours simply bounce the light. Once the paint had dried, I drew a postage stamp sized square on the outside of the box in the centre and then used a thin blade to cut this shape out of the box. Once this shape was cut, I gaffer taped a larger square sized piece of tin foil on the inside of the square I cut out in the box. Once the visible piece of tin foil is placed over the hole inside the box, I made small, pin sized hole in the tin foil, hence the name pinhole camera. I then closed the box and put black masking tape over parts of the box that light could travel through, but left the option of opening the box in order to place photographic paper on the inside. After these steps, I took my pinhole camera into the dark room to place photographic paper inside, I prepared two small squares of double sided gaffer tape and placed them on the inside of my box on the surface opposite the pinhole I created. I then placed a small sheet of photographic paper a little under the length of the side of the box. I placed this paper with the shiny side facing the pinhole, as this is where the image gets printed by the light that gets in the box through the hole. Once the paper was placed securely, I then sealed the box and taped it up to ensure it was light proof and then took it out. The length of the box divided by 0.8 gives you the F-stop, which determines how long your box needs to be exposed to light for. I ensured the pinhole is covered by a re-sealable gaffer tape cover before I was ready to take my photo, If you do not do this, the photographic paper will be exposed too early and will go black due to over exposure. The amount of time needed for exposure is a lot less outside then in, due to the brightness of the sun obviously being a lot stronger outside. Once I had set down my pinhole camera for the amount of exposure time needed, I re-sealed the hole and took it back up to the dark room for developing. Once in the dark room, I untaped my box and opened it up to remove the photographic paper for developing. I placed the photo into an assortment of developing chemicals before placing it through a dryer. I then scanned my images using a flatbed scanner and placed them on to a USB in order to invert them on photoshop and crop and neaten up the original scanned image, which feautred all three images in one. I then placed them on this blog.

The Way Pinhole Cameras Work.

Pinhole cameras work by using an object which can be opened and sealed. For example, a biscuit tin, simply remove the lid and paint the inside of the tin up to four or five coats of black, however much you feel necessary depending on the density of the surface as well as material. After the tin has been well painted, create a hole in the shape of a square or circle, or anything equilateral. Once the hole has been made, cover it with foil on the inside allowing a hole to be poked through the foil, creating a way for light to enter the tin from the outside. Once the hole is finished, enter a dark room with next to no lighting and place a thin sheet of photographic paper on the opposite side of the hold inside the tin. Once paper is placed, seal the lid firmly blocking any other way for light to enter the tin. Measure the length of the object, in this case, a tin and divide the measurement by 0.8, this will act as your F-Stop.

The F-Stop determines how long the object should be exposed to light because it measures the length of the object and how long light will take to place a clear print on the photographic paper, depending on the length of the object and the distance between the hole and the paper. The box will need less time outside because of the amount of light it will be exposed to compared to indoors, and due to this, it will need more time inside then outside. Once the box has been left still for the amount of time the F-Stop determines, re-seal the hole and take it to the dark room and remove the photographic paper and then place it in alkali for a matter of minutes, and then place it into developer fluid to bring out the faint image on the paper to a clearer, more visible state. Once done, place the paper into water for a matter of seconds to wash away excess fluid and then carefully run the paper through the drying machine. Then the image, depending on the length of its exposure, should be clear.