World Pinhole Camera Day is this Sunday April 26th 2009, and as I read about this event it got me thinking about trying this on my own. If you are familiar with pinhole photography you know it is one of the original methods for capturing images and even today people still photograph with pinhole cameras. Today you have the basic and complex portable models, as well as some photographers who turn their car or a room of their house to a pinhole camera. The premise of the pinhole camera is quite straight forward, as light goes through the hole it will project an image onto the back side of the camera or wall which is then captured on film or a digital sensor. You may have even seen this when a small amount of light is coming into your house and projecting on a wall. The smaller the size of the hole the sharper the image, however the perfect size hole depends on the distance between the hole and where the image is bring captured.
In creating a pinhole camera, my approach was quite easy. I purchased a couple of extra camera body caps and placed a small hole in the center. This “small hole” or pinhole allows light to come through the “lens” and onto the digital sensor. While there are advantages of using digital for a pinhole camera since you can see the result on the LCD and adjust as needed, there is also the issue of dust getting through the opening and onto the sensor.
Once I had the camera ready I tried it out around gallery nrc and in the parking lot. The following images were taken with the above set-up, and had some minor adjustments performed in Adobe Lightroom.
The back wall of The Historical Oriental Theater
There is a lot of playing around you can do with this, and also experimenting with different size pinholes for your camera as it will provide different results as well. Lastly, I recommend using an older camera as of the issue with dust getting on the sensor and it could take a while to get it totally clean.
Do you have any pinhole shots you have taken recently, feel free to post a link in the comments.