How To Take A Picture With A Pinhole Camera

Bespeak, Click, Shoot! Photography with a Pinhole Camera

Abstract

Practise y'all like to take pictures with a camera? It tin can be fun to capture important and humorous events in your life on film or on a memory card. Photography is a hobby that people of all ages enjoy because they can creatively limited themselves both artistically and scientifically. Just when did the scientific discipline of photography start and have cameras ever been such complicated pieces of equipment? In this photography scientific discipline project, yous volition experiment with a simple photographic camera called a pinhole photographic camera and y'all will determine the right exposure times for unlike indoor lighting levels.

Summary

Long (2-iv weeks)

Y'all should take admission to a light meter. These tin can be quite expensive, and then effort to borrow a light meter from a photographer friend or from school.

Special-order items required. See the Materials and Equipment list for more details.

High ($100 - $150)

No issues

Michelle Maranowski, PhD, Science Buddies

Objective

To experiment with pinhole photography and determine the correct exposure times for unlike indoor lighting levels.

Introduction

Photography is the meeting of fine art and science. It is an creative activity considering you, as the artist, go to decide what object y'all want to photo, where yous want to photograph information technology, and the kind of lighting you want on the object. All of these things evoke a mood and feeling that the artist wants to share with others. Photography is a science because you demand to understand how all of the dials and lenses on your camera affect the photo you snap. For example, what does the f number of a lens mean, what is the difference between a 54-mm lens and a 200-mm lens, and what picture speed should be used under certain lighting conditions? The film speed is a measure of how sensitive the film you lot are using is to light. For instance, if you were taking pictures outdoors on a sunny day, you would use a lower speed of film (which is less sensitive to lite) than yous would if you were taking pictures indoors or at night.

A camera is an optical device that captures light and exposes film. Since the beginning of photography, camera scientific discipline has gotten a lot more complicated. But when did photography first get-go? When did humans commencement start capturing calorie-free and get-go recording images? Co-ordinate to historical documents, in the 5th century BCE (before common due eastra), the Chinese philosopher Mo Ti was the first person to tape the formation of an inverted image (an image in which the meridian and bottom are reversed) with a pinhole. Mo Ti was aware of the fact that objects reverberate low-cal. In the 10th century BCE, Arabian physicist Ibn al-Haythem congenital the first camera obscura, which means "darkened chamber" in Latin. The photographic camera obscura is a 4-walled dark room with an opening or pinhole in 1 of the walls. Light enters the pigsty in the wall and produces an inverted image on the opposite wall. An inverted prototype is ane that is flipped upside-down—the reason why information technology's flipped is explained in the paragraph beneath and in this video.

So what is a pinhole camera and how does information technology actually piece of work? A pinhole photographic camera is a camera with no lens. It is a lightproof box with a very minor hole on 1 side, only like the photographic camera obscura. How does information technology work? Light reflects off of objects in all directions. If you lot place a pinhole camera in front of the object, some of the reflected light will enter the pinhole. Considering of the management of the light coming through the pinhole, the prototype exposed on the film is inverted. More often than not, the smaller the pinhole, the sharper, but dimmer, the image will exist. Ideally, the size of the pinhole is i/100th the distance between the pinhole and the screen or motion-picture show.

Now, what is the difference betwixt a pinhole camera and modern film cameras that some people withal use to have pictures? Both the pinhole camera and modern film cameras are essentially lightproof boxes that simply permit light in when the shutter or screen is opened. In both cameras, when the shutter or screen is opened, the pic is exposed to light. As mentioned above, to go a really precipitous paradigm with a pinhole camera, the pinhole should exist very small-scale. However, this ways that the resulting paradigm will be dim. To meliorate the image, modern cameras take lenses that focus and concentrate incoming light on the film. Some other departure between the pinhole photographic camera and the modern pic camera is that the modern film camera has an automated shutter that allows you to precisely control the shutter and, therefore, the amount of time that the moving-picture show is exposed to light.

Digital cameras also have lenses like the modern motion-picture show cameras, merely the big departure is that instead of light coming into the box and hit film, the light hits a device that converts it into pixels or electronic information.

In this photography scientific discipline project, you lot volition build your ain pinhole camera from a kit and learn to take pictures with it under different indoor lighting weather with different speeds of film. This is a science project that will allow yous to be both a scientist and an artist.

Terms and Concepts

• f number
• Pic speed
• Optical
• Pinhole photography
• Reverberate
• Photographic camera obscura
• Pixel
• Depth of field
• ISO
• Pic negative
• Overexposed
• Underexposed
• Systematically
• Scatter plot

Questions

• How do photographic camera lenses work?
• Why is the paradigm in a pinhole camera inverted?
• In the course of doing your research, from what kind of containers did pinhole photographers brand cameras?
• What is the depth of field for a pinhole photographic camera?

Bibliography

The following websites depict the physics and technique behind pinhole photography:

• Wikipedia Contributors. (2009, September 4). Pinhole Camera. Wikipedia. The Complimentary Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 29, 2010.
• Joubert, Due south., Ed. (2008, April 24). The Pinhole Photographic camera: Depression-Tech Photography. Retrieved October 15, 2009.

For help creating graphs, try this website:

• National Center for Teaching Statistics. (n.d.). Create a Graph. Retrieved June 2, 2009.

Materials and Equipment

• STD-35 Pinhole Photographic camera Kit; bachelor online at www.fatbraintoys.com, particular # NO065
• Colour pic; 6 rolls each of ISO 100, ISO 200, and ISO 400 speed movie. Each roll should accept 24 exposures.
• Lab notebook
• Table, small enough that you can easily bear it with you lot (like a small-scale patio table or a carte du jour table)
• Tape measure
• Low-cal meter; such every bit the Light Meter LX1010B,l,000 Lux Luxmeter with lcd display, bachelor at Amazon.com
• Stopwatch
• Plastic baggies (xviii)
• Permanent marker
• Graph newspaper

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Experimental Procedure

Performing the Experiment

1. Build the pinhole camera using the detailed instructions that come up with the kit. Read the kit's enclosed instructions nigh how to use the camera. Test the camera to brand sure that it is working. Load a new scroll of film in the camera and take some pictures. The instructions have recommendations on exposure times at certain lighting levels. Follow this guide when performing your test. Once you lot are done taking pictures on the test roll of movie, remove it and take information technology to your local film developer then that they tin can develop the flick. If the resulting pictures take clear images, then your photographic camera is ready for experimenting. If the moving-picture show is all white (overexposed) or all dark (underexposed), and then you need to go back to the drawing board and set up the camera. You lot may have to carefully take it autonomously and redo making it. See Figure 1, below, for an example of an overexposed and underexposed photo.
2. You are gear up to commencement the project when y'all are set to devote time to using an entire curlicue of film in one session. Y'all will need to betrayal the entire ringlet of film in 1 day. This volition accept about 2–3 hours. This means you lot should have some pictures under ane lighting condition, such equally a shady room, and so the rest under another unlike lighting condition, such every bit a sunny room. Do not take a few pictures and leave the film in the camera for more than a day or your images might become overexposed.
3. The instructions that come with the camera are clear about exposure times for ISO 100 and ISO 400 film under cloudy or sunny outdoor lighting conditions; nevertheless, in this photography science project, you will extend the instructions included in the kit and add together steps for taking pictures indoors. You will accept indoor pictures in a shady room in your house or school and in a sunny room in your house or school, both during daylight hours, for ISO 100, ISO 200, and ISO 400 pic.
4. Following the instructions that came with the camera kit, load a ringlet of ISO 100 speed film into the pinhole camera. Make certain to use the condom bands to keep the camera airtight.
5. Go to a shady room in your house or school. Place the table in the room and put the camera on top of information technology. Aim the camera at a feature in the room that is non moving or changing (only that you lot tin easily move to another room subsequently), like a poster on the wall or a bowl of fruit. Measure out the distance with a record mensurate and tape it in your lab notebook. Using the calorie-free meter, measure the amount of low-cal in the room. Take a light meter reading correct in front of the photographic camera and then that you lot go an authentic reading of the bachelor low-cal. Note downward the date, the light meter reading, and the time of day in your lab notebook.
6. Read the instructions to learn how to advance the moving-picture show. Decide on the times that you will expose the film at this light level and the number of pictures you plan to take. Use the instructions included in the kit to assist you estimate a reasonable exposure time. Once yous decide on a starting time (based on the exposure times in the instructions included in the kit), you lot will systematically increase (or decrease) the length of time that yous volition expose the film in order to meet how this affects the final quality, brightness, and sharpness of the image in the resulting photograph. You can endeavor systematically increasing or decreasing the exposure time by 1 or 2 seconds. Brand a information table in your lab notebook to keep track of this data, similar the one shown beneath.

7. Expose the movie as you planned in footstep vi. Utilize the stopwatch to keep track of the exposure time. Endeavour to take 2 pictures for each exposure time. Yous must betrayal the entire whorl.
8. Rewind the whorl of pic from step vii, remove it from the camera, and place it into a plastic baggie. Replace information technology with some other gyre of ISO 100 speed film. Write the trial number, the film speed, the roll number, and the lighting conditions on the plastic baggie.
9. Move to the sunny room and fix your equipment. Motility the affiche or item that you took a picture of in the shady room into the sunny room. Try to place the poster or object the aforementioned way in the sunny room equally you did in the shady room. Have a low-cal meter reading. Identify the tabular array in the room and the camera on meridian of the tabular array. Place the low-cal meter in forepart of the camera to record an accurate reading. Tape the light meter reading in your lab notebook.
10. Write down in your data table the number of images you plan to take, objects you're photographing, and the exposure times. Use the same altitude between the photographic camera on the tabular array and the object you are photographing equally you did in the shady room. Review the instructions in the kit and estimate a starting exposure time. Over again, you will have to systematically change the time that you expose the picture show in club to encounter how the exposure time affects the final quality of the photograph.
11. Expose the film every bit yous planned in step x. Use the stopwatch to proceed track of the exposure time. Try to take two pictures for each exposure time. You must betrayal the entire gyre.
12. Rewind the roll of film, remove it from the photographic camera, and place information technology into a plastic baggie. Write the trial number, the film speed, and the lighting conditions on the plastic baggie.
13. Echo steps 4–12 using ISO 200 speed picture show. You might have to expect for another day so that you can betrayal the film at exactly the same time and with the same lighting weather at which you exposed the 100-speed picture. Think about the exposure times that you plan to use. Should they exist longer than the exposure times you lot used for the ISO 100 picture show or shorter? Tape the exposure times and locations in another information table in your lab notebook.
14. Repeat steps 4–12 using ISO 400 speed film. You might have to wait for another day so that you can expose the moving picture at exactly the same time and with the same lighting atmospheric condition at which you lot exposed the 100 speed pic. Think about the exposure times that you plan to apply. Should they exist longer than the exposure times you used for the ISO 100 movie or shorter? Record the exposure times and locations in another data table in your lab notebook.
15. Now take the rolls of film to get developed. Be sure to include the information from your data tables on the moving-picture show envelopes so when yous get them back yous know which is which. After developing, you will receive both the film negatives and the photographs. Review your photographs. How do the photographs look? Can you see a difference between the exposure times at each lighting level and how the different ISO speed films reacted with the low-cal?
16. If you are happy with how your photographs look, repeat steps four–15 two more than times. Whenever you practice a science experiment, information technology is important to echo your experiment at least 3 times to make sure that the information (in this example, photographs) you gather is authentic and reproducible.
    • If you lot are not happy with your photographs, then repeat steps 4–15 using unlike exposure times. If you are not happy with simply 1 ready of exposures, then but echo that function over once again.

Analyzing Your Data

1. Find the best (clearest and sharpest) movie for each trial, film speed, and lighting level. Average the exposure times of the pictures for each lighting level and movie speed over the three trials. Record the average exposure time for each picture speed and lighting level in your lab notebook.
2. Plot the boilerplate exposure times on a graph. Y'all can brand the graphs by hand or use a website such as Create a Graph. Label the x-axis Film Speed and the y-axis Exposure Time. You lot can plot the data for the different lighting levels on the same graph.
3. Now look at all of the pictures that you took for each speed of moving picture. Separate the pictures by exposure time. Give each picture a number and then decide how overexposed or underexposed each image is on a scale of i to v, where 1 is completely underexposed and 5 is completely overexposed. Recollect, objects in a moving-picture show that is underexposed will await darker than they actually were. Objects in a picture that is overexposed volition await too vivid. There is besides a loss of details in overexposed pictures. Record your data in a tabular array like the one shown beneath.

4. At present plot the data from this data table on a scatter plot. You tin can plot the data by hand or use Create A Graph, mentioned in footstep 2 of this section. The scatter plot is a sub–blazon under the XY graphs. Label the x-axis Exposure Time and the y-axis Scale of Exposure for each film speed and lighting level.

Enquire an Skilful

Do you have specific questions about your science project? Our team of volunteer scientists tin can help. Our Experts won't do the piece of work for you, only they will make suggestions, offering guidance, and help y'all troubleshoot.

Variations

• Tin can you brand a pinhole camera from a different container? In that location are many instructions online detailing dissimilar ways of making a pinhole camera. Try one of them out and compare the resulting photographs with the photographs you took with the camera from the kit. Do the exposure times change?
• Try dark photography with your pinhole camera. Use ISO 400 picture show and fix long exposure times. Does it work? If not, yous may have to become special high-speed pic.

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Science Buddies Staff. "Indicate, Click, Shoot! Photography with a Pinhole Photographic camera." Science Buddies, twenty November. 2020, https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/Photo_p023/photography-video/point-click-shoot-pinhole-camera. Accessed 4 May 2022.

APA Style

Science Buddies Staff. (2020, November 20). Indicate, Click, Shoot! Photography with a Pinhole Camera. Retrieved from https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/Photo_p023/photography-video/signal-click-shoot-pinhole-photographic camera

Last edit date: 2020-xi-20

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