Pinhole Camera Guide: How to Make a Pinhole Camera at Home

A pinhole camera is a type of lensless camera that uses a small hole (the pinhole) to capture an image. Pinhole cameras take advantage of the camera obscura (“dark chamber”) effect, a natural phenomenon that occurs when an image is projected through a small aperture in a darkened room. When light passes through a small enough hole—with a long exposure—an image will be projected on the opposite wall, upside-down. This projected image can then be traced on paper or canvas or captured using photographic paper or film. Instead of a dark chamber, pinhole cameras consist of a small light-proof box or tube, which makes them easy to DIY.

The camera obscura effect has been used for thousands of years.

• Beginnings: The first written description of the camera obscura effect comes from Chinese philosopher Mozi (c.470–391 BCE). Soon after, Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BCE) also recorded the phenomenon, after he noticed distinct crescent shapes projected onto the ground when the light passed through small gaps in the leaves of trees during a solar eclipse.
• Renaissance: Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci (1492–1591) drew over 200 drawings and diagrams of the camera obscura phenomenon in his sketchbooks. Da Vinci may have been the first person to use the camera obscura as a drawing aid.
• Invention of the pinhole camera: Scottish inventor Sir David Brewster is credited with describing the first pinhole camera in 1856.

Pinhole cameras work by the camera obscura effect. Imagine a pinhole camera as a dark room with a small window. On a bright day, light from the sun will bounce off outside objects, through your window, and into your room. While this light seems random, each beam follows a very straight line. This is because light waves follow a rectilinear, or straight, path.

If the window is large, many light waves will enter the room, each one then hitting the walls and bouncing back and forth. If you were to shrink that window, less light would be let in, and the beams would begin to hit only the wall opposite the window. As you kept shrinking your window down to a fine pinhole, you would find the lightwaves hitting your wall begin to resemble an inverted image of the outside. This is because as beams of light reflected off the outside objects hit your window at an angle, each one continues straight, intersecting at the point of the pinhole, before hitting your wall.

Now, replace the room with a small box. The back wall is called the film plane. The window is the pinhole, and its size is known as the aperture size. The distance between the film plane and the pinhole is the camera’s focal length.

Exploring pinhole cameras can be a great way to understand the principles of photography better.

• Infinite depth of field: In photography, depth of field refers to the range between the closest and furthest reasonably sharp objects of your image. A photo focused on a single flower in front of a blurry background has a small depth of field. If that same photo captured the flower as well as the mountains behind it, it would have a very large depth of field. Pinhole cameras have an infinite depth of field, meaning that with the right photo paper or film, they can capture striking images of perfectly in-focus foregrounds and backgrounds.
• Solargraphy: One of the most common (and earliest) uses of pinhole cameras is the practice of solargraphy, or photography of the sun. Taking a picture of the sun’s path across the sky over the course of several days or weeks requires a camera with a long exposure time, which is perfect for the pinhole camera.
• Educational: The experiment of building and using a pinhole camera can teach students about the basics of photography. By adjusting the size of the pinhole (the aperture) or the distance between the camera and subject (the field of view), students can begin to understand the fundamentals of both light wavelengths and f-stops.

Despite its advantages, pinhole photography can be very limited in its application, which is why it has largely been replaced by digital photography.

• Unable to capture movement: Unlike modern cameras, pinhole cameras require an incredibly long exposure time to capture as much light as possible. Any motion shorter than the exposure time will be blurred or completely lost in your final image.
• Limited mobility: Even professionally made pinhole cameras require a lot of space, and so can be very bulky. Due to the amount of time it takes to fully capture each image, photographers cannot move the camera for minutes or hours at a time.
• Faint or dim pictures: The photos that pinhole cameras capture are often very dim. This is because of the very limited amount of light that is able to enter the camera and hit the image plane. Unlike most film cameras, pinhole cameras do not use a flash.

Here’s how to make a simple pinhole camera at home, step by step. This basic camera is designed to illustrate the camera obscura effect, not to capture an image. If you want to capture images, there are many tutorials on how to construct different pinhole cameras. Some can chart the sun’s path over several days, and others are used for observing eclipses, but most are very easy to make. Students of all ages can make their own pinhole cameras within a few minutes and start exploring light diffraction as soon as the sun hits.

1. 1. Select a light-proof box or container, such as a shoebox, empty tube of oatmeal, or cardboard box.
2. 2. Using a utility knife, cut two credit card-sized rectangles into opposite ends of your container.
3. 3. Using electrical tape, tape a piece of translucent or light-sensitive paper over one of the openings.
4. 4. Using electrical tape, tape a piece of aluminum foil over the other opening.
5. 5. Using a sewing needle or the end of a sharp pencil, poke a tiny hole into the aluminum foil.
6. 6. Using electrical tape, tape a light-proof blanket onto the side of the container with the translucent paper so that it covers the entire side and acts as a hood.
7. 7. Covering your head and neck with the light-proof blanket, point the pinhole end of the pinhole camera towards a nearby light source and try to make out the image of the object. Remember, this image will appear upside-down.
8. 8. Experiment by replacing your aluminum foil. Make a smaller pinhole and see how it affects your image. Try enlarging it. You may also try using a container of a different size to increase or decrease the focal length.

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