Purpose of theProject:

Students will design and build their own pinhole camera with materials of their own choosing. After studying the parts of a camera and looking at illustrations of cameras students are allowed to let their creative ideas run wild with simple material they can afford and bring into class. The specifications for the camera are that: 1) it must have a means of placing the paper or film into the box and then closing it back up (usually through a lid ) 2)that the box be light tight box 3) that the box be painted black on the inside 4) a pinhole plate be constructed 5) and a shutter.

The students will spend 3-5 days designing and constructing their pinhole cameras. They will spend another 3-5 days using their camera to photograph objects and or people in the studio (classroom) and processing their results and contact printing their negatives in the darkroom. The finished work will be presented along with their calculations and analysis. The class will critique the work as well as the design of the camera.


Software Materials Used:

I became interested in pinhole photography after someone had given me a present of a commercially made pinhole camera several years ago. It was made out of wood and it looked nice but it never came off my shelf although I was curious as to what I could use it for. After doing some research I found that it might make for a good teaching tool for my beginning photo students and the idea of making their own camera that really worked seemed like magic to them. The process of making the pinhole camera makes the understanding of the parts of the camera real to the students in a way that lecturing about it or reading about it can not. In this time of advanced electronics sometimes the basic principles seem so remote and are lost on our young and so going back to basic principles is often very helpful in their understanding of the process. I find that hands-on concept also helps the creative juices to flow. Students will be introduced to the light meter, enlarger, and simple camera. After the negative has been processed if an enlarger is not available the images may be scanned, reversed, and manipulated in a program such as Photoshop.


Students:

Pinhole photography can be made to work with all levels of students as long as the goals are kept age appropriate. Students as young as Kindergarten can make a pinhole camera and take a photo with it. Students in college studying higher levels of physics can discuss the formulas and reasons for camera obscura. Students of all levels can make and use the camera as an inexpensive creative outlet.

Overall:

I found that as a teaching tool pinhole photography can be used to incorporate math and science in a interdisciplinary curriculum. Mathematical calculations are needed to calculate exposure time and principles of optics can be studied to understand the formation of the image itself. There is also a long history of the principle of the "camera obscura" that Aristotle discusses and Renaissance painters rediscovered and utilized in creating their masterpieces. Pinhole cameras were developed and used by photographers as early as the 1850's and have been used on space missions in the 1960's to photograph x-rays and gamma rays of the sun. Students set up their own still life or portrait settings, calculate their own exposure (working in groups helps as there is great deal of information that must be processed) and their negatives are processed in the darkroom. After viewing the results alteration in their exposures must be calculated to improve results. The steps are repeated at least once more so that students can try something different now that they have an idea how this system works and it gives them a chance to see if their calculations will work again. Once the technical aspect is understood the students can experiment and be creative.

Tips:

Pinhole cameras have infinite depth of field (everything is in focus) yet soft focus because there is no lens also there is light falloff at the edges when the film plane is flat. These facts should be exploited to make for distinctive images different from typical images made from cameras with lenses. Also different in a pinhole camera is the fact when ultrawide the image remains rectilinear unlike traditional wide angle lenses where lines curve.

The formula for determining a pinhole f-stop is f+v/d, f= aperture, v = distance from pinhole to film or paper, and d = pinhole diameter. 

e-mail Ira Merritt

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