Boy, was I wrong.
First I discovered that PINHOLE PHOTOGRAPHY was invented centuries ago when man discovered that light passing through a tiny hole produced an image of the object on the surface it fell on. The earliest documentation of this discovery comes from the Chinese in the 5th century B.C., and was later expanded upon in the writings of Aristotle.
I found that the first published picture of a pinhole camera obscura was found in a drawing in 1545 by Gemma Frisius, an astronomer, who used the pinhole in his darkened room to study the solar eclipse of 1544. The term camera obscura describing a "dark room" was coined later by Johannes Kepler.
Then, Sir David Brewster a Scottish scientist was one of the first to make pinhole photographs in the 1850s. He was also the first to use the word "pinhole". The Nobel Prize winner, Lord Rayleigh, researched pinholes in the 1880s to achieve the optimal pinhole formulas still used by scientists today
So I learned that Pinhole Photography is unique in that it can require nothing elaborate or expensive in its simplest form and has been around for centuries. It needs no lens as normal photography does and can be made from cardboard or such with a hole in it. Like:
Light rays bounce off the image in a small and precise way through the hole and form a reverse image on a slip of paper or film. These cameras are usually handmade. Basically, the pinhole camera consists of a light tight box with a pinhole in one end, and a piece of film or photographic paper attached to the other end. A shutter devise can be a piece of paper or cardboard that can be folded out of the way as needed. The pinhole can be made by using a sewing needle or small nail through a piece of foil or the like. Remember, the more perfect the hole and the tinier the hole, the better the picture will be. This piece is then applied to the inside of the light tight box behind a hole cut through the box. An oatmeal box can be made into an excellent pinhole camera, but should be covered in foil to be light free. Sometimes Pinhole cameras are made with a movable film holder or back so that the space between the film and the pinhole can be adjusted, allowing the angle view of the camera to be changed. Moving the film closer to the pinhole can give you a wider angle view and a different picture.
So now I was more familiar with the Pinhole Concept, but putting it to practical use seemed to take some creativity and skill. Something I’m not so into. Did I mention, I was the “point and shoot” type? So maybe it only requires purchasing the proper equipment. Depending on how crafty you are and how professional and serious you are about the results.
At Lenox Laser, they make it easy for Pinhole Photographers to get laser-drilled pinhole quality (remember the tinier and the more perfect the hole, the better the picture) in a new line of practical SLR pinhole conversion products for standard 35mm cameras, a customer driven concept built by our R&D team.
Its’ simple, using the classic 35mm SLR camera format, Lenox Laser SLR Pinhole Kits can now easily outfit your Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Canon, or Minolta camera with another lens in your arsenal, a pinhole designed for your specific camera. Lenox Laser online calculator’s page offers an array of pinhole calculators to aid your photographic efforts in finding correct exposure times, f-stops, and proper pinhole sizes. Currently, we offer PC, Mac, Palm, and Web-based pinhole calculators.
REFERENCES/LINKS:
http://photo.net/learn/pinhole/pinhole
www.kodak.com/global/en/consumer/.../pinholeCamera/
www.spiritus-temporis.com/pinhole-camera/pinhole-camera-construction
www.spiritus-temporis.com/pinhole-camera/pinhole-camera-construction
www.video-surveillance-guide.com/pinhole-camera-history.htm
www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Pinhole_camera
www.exploratorium.edu/science.../pringles_pinhole.html
