[BradJudy]

I recently finished building my third pinhole camera and just had the first roll developed.  While there is a bit of a light leak to work out, I'm pretty pleased with the first outing. 

It started as this tin from the thrift store...



...developed into this for mechanisms...



...and finished as a full camera:



Here are a few pictures from the first roll.  I was photographing buildings along a street in Atlanta for a local photo contest.  I also took one of my earlier home-made cameras out, but completely screwed up that roll and will have to re-shoot.


0.15mm pinhole (EMS) @ ~24mm focal length onto 6x6 120 negative Ilford Delta 100

Note: This results in a field of view of ~121 degrees, the same as a 10-11mm lens on a 35mm camera or a 6-7mm lens on a digital SLR.  As you can guess, I was standing very close to the buildings being photographed.

This is a church near downtown Atlanta:



The entrance to a nice hotel in ATL:



A building currently under renovation:



A side-door on the historic Fox Theatre (built in the 1920s as a Shriner's Temple):

[Mr Content]

Thats very clever 

Mr C

[S Clark]

BJ, these are really impressive.  I hope to talk to a fellow this week to see about a sponsor for a student project with something like this.  Keep posting those pictures! Very cool.

Scott

[BradJudy]

Thanks Mr C and Scott.

Pinhole cameras are a classic student project since they can be made cheaply out of a number of reused materials.  I've used candy/cookie tins for my last two since our local thrift store has shelves of them for $0.50-$1 each in all sorts of shapes and sizes.  The classic oatmeal canister with large paper film is popular for students since it has almost zero build requirements, but given the impressive results the students have had with speaker building, I bet they would do well with cameras like this one and the others I've made.

I've got a list of some good pinhole websites if you're interested in pursuing it for schools.  There are some good sites with calculators and build ideas, and there's a whole forum dedicated to pinhole photography. 

Good site with a downloadable calculator and examples of cameras
http://www.pinhole.cz/en/pinholecameras/mycameras.html

A broad pinhole resource:
http://www.pinhole.com/

Good list of resources including a PDF of a teacher's guide
http://idea.uwosh.edu/nick/pinholephoto.htm

Online calculators and other useful stuff
http://www.mrpinhole.com/

More online calculators, including reciprocity breakdown
http://pinhole.stanford.edu/

Pinhole photography forum
http://www.f295.org/Pinholeforum/forum/Blah.pl

Good technical article on the science and math of pinhole cameras
http://www.pinhole.com/archive/371

I'm currently using these electron microscope grids for pinholes.  They are cheap ($30 for 100), but tiny and must be carefully mounted.
http://www.emsdiasum.com/microscopy/products/grids/gilder.aspx#GA75

Of course, schools might consider the traditional true pinhole approach to making apertures, or get a set of micro drill-bits to drill their own. 

BTW: You can slip a chemistry lesson into the mix with the discussion of the film itself and the "reciprocity breakdown" at the long exposure times required for pinhole cameras. 

[S Clark]

I have been toying with the idea of creating an offering to students in an evening class that covers light and diffraction, film chemistry, pin hole cameras, and finally photography techniques .  I have a retired local photographer that has published in National Geographic that is interested in helping out.  Pin hole cameras, speakers, I have access to a dinosaur site on a private ranch-  you have the makings of a full year of student research projects where a kid could get a year of science credit, learn a lot, and have fun doing it while covering a broad set of science disciplines. 

After we get the speaker projects finished, I'll see what I can organize on a bigger scale.

[BradJudy]

That's cool that you have a local expert who's willing to help, I bet the kids will be excited about that.   I have fun discussing neat learning experiences for students with my wife (physics professor, specializing in optics). 

[nathanm]

Cool stuff!  It will probably become increasingly rare in the future for there to be technology which is accessible to the average person.  By that I mean that just about anyone can make and understand a pinhole camera, but none of us are likely to be able to build a digital camera.  Not that you can make a camera after being dropped naked into the woods, it's still a fair amount of technology; but in comparison to the integrated circuit it's much more accessible.  Every kid probably has a cell phone that takes pictures, but they can't get their hands dirty with such a device.  They can't really do anything with it without a long legacy of technological development.  Most stuff around today breaks if you dare open it.  But with this project all that breaks are your Christmas cookies.

[BradJudy]

Yes, all I need now to complete my Macgyver camera is the knowledge to make my own film by mixing household chemicals and/or forest plants. 

Oh, and not many cookies would fit in this container, it's about as compact as a 120 film camera gets:

[nathanm]

Hey, this thread is even more appropriate now that we're under the auspices of the "Simple Machines Forum!