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Great for introducing children to photography,
it's easy and you can do the film loading, developing and
printing under an amber safelight.
Plus it has a quality that's unique. Not bad, for a simple
box with a hole in one end.. |
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With
a cardboard box,
a pinhole, sunlight or preferably a bright cloudy sky,
a subject that can keep still for a minute or more,
and some 5" X 7" photographic paper..
Me with the clock that doesn't work, counting 90 seconds..
("onethousandandone.. onethousandandtwo.. onethousandandthree..
etc..")
and that's Bob Algie the builder on the ladder in the
background.
He got tired of standing still, and went back to his
hammering.. |
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Note
the depth of field you can achieve with a Pinhole camera.
For the above photo, I placed the camera on the wood
deck, pulled the piece of tape from the pinhole, and
positioned myself for the exposure of about a minute
and a half.
While it's not a paragon of sharpness, the resulting
print has a quality that's unique. |
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The Device
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Think
of a shoebox.. with the lid on the end, instead of on
top.
The inside of the camera is painted with matt black
(blackboard) paint, the pinhole is drilled into a small
square of very thin brass (or better still phosphor
bronze because it is stiffer), which is taped to the
front.
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I
wanted to use 5"x7" standard photo paper, and a focal
length equivalent of 50mm, or a standard camera lens,
which corresponds to what you see with your eyes. So
the pinhole size is about .6mm, for which I had a drill
bit handy. A quick job in a pin vice. This size hole
is dictated by the distance from pinhole to paper, 220mm,
which in turn is dictated by my desired focal length
(equivalent to 50mm).
Other dimensions are not critical, just leave enough
room to tape your sheet of paper to the inside of the
snug-fitting lid.
Finally, after loading the 'film', I usually tape the
lid join with black insulation tape to ensure no light
leaks. In these photos, I ran out of tape so you can
see a couple of light leaks around some edges.
It's a one-shot process until you return to the darkroom
to reload, so I made three identical cameras.
Processing is simple. Develop the photographic paper
in a standard developer, PQ Universal will do, and when
washed and dried, contact the negative print to another
sheet of photographic paper, face to face, to make the
positive.
Under the enlarger lamp, you will find that the photographic
paper is transparent enough to make a good print. A
couple of test exposures onto small pieces of photographic
paper will enable you to find a suitable exposure time.
If you're new to this process, I have a page detailing
the basics of
black and white processing here
At the other extreme.. I have now given my elder daughter
a digital camera because she is keen on photography,
and as the best way to learn photography is to take
lots of photographs, the cost of developing all the
(colour) films would be ruinous. Low resolution digital
camera prices are dropping, and are made for children
because they can burn all their images cheaply onto
cds for storage and print out select images (after various
modifications have been made in a photo-editing program..)
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Another photo of me with my builder Bob
Algie, taking a break from adding extensions to the
house in May 1999. It's hard to stay perfectly still
for a minute or so.. (especially on a ladder). |
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