My Daughter's Digital Pinhole Camera
My eighth grade daughter chose to make a pinhole camera for the science fair and asked me to help out. With this being the 21st Century and all, we opted to make a digital version.
It was actually fairly simple to create. She, along with a schoolmate, took a cardboard box and covered it in foil tape to guarantee that it was lightproof. For the lens, a piece of aluminum soda can was used with a needle hole punched in the center. In place of film on the inside of the box, she put a sheet of white paper.
To add the digital part, a hole was cut in the front of the box beside the pinhole lens. It was through this hole that the digital SLR was used to record the pinhole image being displayed on the rear of the box's inside. To eliminate any light leaks around the SLR lens, a combination of a rubber gasket made from a bicycle tube and foil tape was used. The lens was set on manual focus at its closest setting.
For exposure, she did a bunch of trial-and-error test shots (pretty much just bracketed her times). She was eventually able to produce some fairly good images. In hindsight, I would have suggested that she used a smaller aperture on the SLR to increase the depth-of-field to overcome the blurred left side of the frame.
All in all, I like what she came up with. It was pretty cool to see the image the was captured through a pinhole in a soda can.
Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f4/L lens - 40 seconds, f/4, ISO 3200
6 Comments:
Cool photo! Nice way to combine old-school w/ digital photography; I did the "real" version back in high-school, and it was really fun.
I've been wanting to do this w/ my digi camera for a while, too. What I plan on doing is take a body-cap and cut an opening, then place a pin-holed piece of metal on the end. I've also thought of getting the pinhole optic for my Lensbaby. :)
Very cool, Rich. Do you have a photo of the "camera?" I'm sure the teacher would like to see the contraption you and your daughter devised (I'd like to see it, too!).
Yeah, we're gonna need a pic of the camera itself. That's just too cool Rich.
That's an awesome idea for a science project. I'm putting this in my back pocket for my kids' science fair next year.
Rich,
What a great project. I just love the final result. The nice thing is that you can have an "instant preview" with the LCD on the camera.
I kinda like the blur on the edges. it give the image a real pinhole look.
To combine computer tech with pinhole photography, I used B&W photo paper in my pinhole camera, developed the paper and then scanned the image and using paintshop I reversed the negative image to a positive. I then sent it to Walgreen's electronically to have printed.
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