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Pinhole Experiment


Pinhole Experiment
Photo Information
Copyright: Dario Cea (lecorbudar) Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Note Writer [C: 100 W: 4 N: 60] (431)
Genre: Places
Medium: Color
Date Taken: 2007-04-07
Categories: Architecture, Artwork, Experimental, Macro
Camera: Pinhole camera (self made), @ ISO 200
Exposure: f/inf, 7 seconds
Details: Tripod: Yes
Photo Version: Original Version
Date Submitted: 2007-04-21 11:56
Viewed: 815
Points: 10
[Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note
This is my first photo made with a pinhole camera.
A self-made pinhole camera it's quite un-usual today. Nowdays we can easily take very good quality photo with a digital camera even without knowing nothing about how we took it! Many of us maybe ignore the phisics principle of photography; so, the photo we obtain becames "accidental" almost like a random shot because our cameras can be totaly automatic.
I experimented what I said on myself. As soon as I discovered this I decided to try to understand photography and not just press a botton and create a composition in a photo. From that moment I have never used any automatism and I started to practise with exposure , shutter speed, diaphram ect. really normal things if I lived 10-20 years ago!

How I discovered the pinhole camera? It was thanks to the necessity to take pictures of my project's maquettes. I wanted to obtain a geometrically correct image of my works, something like a hand-made perspective drawing. This is practically impossible to obtain with a lens because of the aberrations which transform a straight line into a bending one.
So the solution to my issue was to use a camera without any lens, like the "camera obscura" used by the painters in the past.

"A pinhole camera is a camera without a conventional glass lens. An extremely small hole in a very thin material can focus light by confining all rays from a scene through a single point. In order to produce a reasonably clear image, the aperture has to be a small pinhole on the order of 0.5 mm (0.02 inches) or less. The shutter of a pinhole camera usually consists of a hand operated flap of some light-proof material to cover and uncover the pinhole. Pinhole cameras require much longer exposure times than conventional cameras because of the small aperture; typical exposure times can range from 5 seconds to hours or days." (from wikipedia)

I realized my pinhole with a piece of can that I pierced with a needle very carefully and softly. I made many shots with several shutter speed, since I had no exposure meter.

Of course the image is a very poor quality one with low brighteness and high noise, due to the hole's very small dimension. But on the other hand, the perpective is correct and it has an infinite DOP (because of the absence of the lens, so you don't have to focus!).
I couldn't control the composition since I had no
view-finder in my camera, and actually I don't know why the photo has these blu tones...
The subject is a wooden model I made together with my friend Davide of our project we did 4 years ago during our 3rd semenster at university.
Of course I didn't post-processed the photo, just scanned and posted on TL!
Anyway, next time I will try with a b/w film and I'll improve my camera.

I don't espect any points with this image but I have to say it was very amazing both making the camera and taking the photos. Thanks for just looking at it!

P.S. I still have nothing against digital camera!!! :-D
Freddie, davey590 has marked this note useful
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ThreadThread Starter Messages Updated
To Freddie: Thankslecorbudar 1 04-21 14:19
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Critiques [Translate]

Hi Dario!
This is a great moment and I wana thank you for sharing this amazing picture! How many of us shoots pictures w/ cameras made by themselves!!!? It's more than experiencing a dressmaker being asked in the Oscar red carpet if her clothes were designed by Armani and saying... "I made it myself!"
You have to be proud of this and I am proud of you!
As a fan of architecture and lines, I like the result of the straight elements made by your camera.
TFS,
Freddie :)

Dario!

Just then I was about to write some lines about
your photo I reloaded the page and found that
"Freddie" allredy wrote them!! ;-)

Pinhole photograpy is THE realy true art of Photography.

/Anders

Hi Dario!Nice and very interesting idea!
Ciao.
Aleksa

  • Great 
  • krzesz Gold Star Critiquer/Silver Note Writer [C: 725 W: 5 N: 15] (5455)
  • [2007-04-22 14:18]

hi Dario..
for me interesting experiment..
Original idea and technique..
..I don't like routine and this is creative image..

m..

nice one
glad to see others interested in pinhole photography
check out these sites
Dave Rogers
http://www.pinhole.org/gallery/artist.cfm?name=Dave_Rogers
http://galactinus.net/vilva/pinhole/index.html

I think that this is the first pinhole photo I have seen on a Trek site, well done for the effort and thanks for posting it. Quite an amazingly good result considering the basic construction of the camera.
Very well done!

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