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April 06, 2005
Pinhole Camera, Part 2
A couple weeks ago I described the technology burnout that led me to build a pinhole camera. Once I stripped away the extraneous gadgetry, I was left with a lightproof box with a hole in it. Until I build myself a darkroom, I won't be able to test this simple machine. Or will I? My vacation from technology was nice, but back to technology I go. It is going to take digital camera technology to test my pinhole camera.
If you have ever built a pinhole camera, you already know the drawbacks of the bare bones design:
1. You have to load the camera in the dark.
2. You have to guess at the exposure time.
3. You have to develop the film/photo paper before you know whether you even got a good exposure.
4. You only get one shot before you have to reload.
This is pretty much the opposite of a digital camera because those weaknesses are the main strengths of digital.
1. There is no film or light sensitive material to worry about.
2. You may still have to guess at exposure times, but if you are wrong, you simply delete the picture and try again.
3. You know instantly whether or not you got a good exposure.
4. The only limit to how many photos you take is the amount of you can store on your memory card.
If I could add the advantages of digital cameras to my pinhole camera, I would be able to take unlimited photos without a darkroom. In part 3 I will explain how I built the world's first digital pinhole camera.* As a teaser, you can see my first successful digital pinhole camera photos at FoundPhotography.com.
*My limited research showed that, yes, there are many people using digital pinhole cameras. All you have to do is make a pinhole in a lens cap and attach it to the lens. The design of my digital pinhole camera is somewhat different, as I will explain in part 3. I am not aware of anyone using a pinhole camera design quite like mine.
Originally published on Be A Design Group.
Posted by Adrian at April 6, 2005 09:00 PM