The pinhole camera has been around since about 1850 and it's the antithesis of the hi-tech, multi-megapixel, auto focus, auto exposure cameras of today.
With no viewfinder or LCD screen to review photos, you are at the mercy of skill, luck and serendipity when shooting with pinhole cameras. And that can be a pretty exciting way to make photographs.
Anyone who's comfortable with tape, scissors, a sewing needle and a few other things can make a pinhole camera. The following is a rough idea of what you need to make your own pinhole camera:
- A container that can be made lightproof. Paint cans are popular pinhole cameras, as are oatmeal containers. Altoids tins have been used although my effort produced so-so images. Size is limited by your imagination.
- A sewing needle, the finer the better.
- Brass shim stock for the pinhole (I've used as thin as 0.01 inches and it was fine). I found these and other thicknesses at Lee Valley Tools after searching the usual hardware stores to no avail.
- Black tape, preferably cloth tape since it has a dull finish.
- Scissors for cutting the brass shims and tape.
- Some emery cloth such as that used in plumbing to smooth out and remove any sharp burrs around the hole in the can.
- A drill is ideal for making holes in the cans (this is not the pinhole itself, although it could be used).
- Black construction paper.
- Photographic paper (makes a paper negative) or film when you're ready to use the camera Let's try the paint can pinhole camera.
I started by drilling a largish hole - about 5-6 millimetres - midway between the top and bottom. The brass shim pinhole will be taped behind this hole on the inside.
To make the pinhole in the brass shim, I wrapped a small bit of cloth tape around the end of the needle, making a sort of grip with which to twist the needle.
For my cameras, I cut a piece of brass about an inch square.
Placed flat on a piece of wood, I twisted the needle in a slow drilling motion through the shim. The drilling motion creates a rounder smoother hole which will produce noticeably better photos.
Most people flip the shim around and drill through the same hole to make it even. If you've made a clean hole, there shouldn't be a need to use very, very fine sandpaper (400 grit) to smooth out the pinhole.
This pinhole is now taped behind the hole you made in the paint can. The next step can be done before or after taping the pinhole to the can. Cut out enough paper to completely encircle the inside of the can, cover the inside of the lid and the bottom of the can. The black paper will reduce the amount of light that's reflecting on the walls of the can, giving better contrast and fewer, if any, flares.
Before you use the camera, you have to cover the pinhole, a shutter if you will, so you don't expose the paper or film until you're ready. A flap of tape will do fine.
All of the above shouldn't take very much time at all, maybe an hour or so. If you make a mistake, it's a simple matter to redo a step. Depending on the size of photographic paper you use, it may need to be cut down to fit in the paint can. I use 8x10 paper and trim about an inch off the long end, leaving me with 7x10 paper. Cutting the paper and putting it in the camera can be done under darkroom safelights or a red bulb, but you may have to test the bulb first.
Exposures with paper negatives will be approximately 20-30 seconds in bright sunlight if using a sewing needle pinhole, but you'll have to run some tests to determine actual times.
Keep in mind that one odd quirk of pinhole photography is that your photos may be devoid of people because the long exposure times allows people to pass through the frame not getting enough exposure to capture their image. With the paint can pinhole camera, it's going to be a one-shot camera. After the shot, you process the paper negative or film (unless you have a film changing bag to replace the paper negative). Just remember you'll need something to pry off the lid of the paint can.
If using photographic paper for making negatives, print developing materials will be needed to process the negatives. This is probably a step one will have to do on their own since most labs are not set up to process black and white photo paper from walk in customers.
Anyone who is familiar with black and white print processing will be at home in this stage of pinhole photography and it's a very easy skill to learn.
Three or four trays (developer, stop bath, fixer and wash) are needed and these can be darkroom trays or something else that could be used instead. You'll also need a room that can be made light proof so bathrooms with no windows or basement laundry rooms are the usual options for most. A red or amber safelight bulb will be needed so you can monitor the developing and for the first time home developer, this is the part of the process that usually gets people hooked on print developing.
So you have a paper negative, now what? One option would be to make contact prints with the paper negatives giving you positive print. The processing of the contact print is the same as developing the negative so no other materials or items are needed.
Scanning the paper negative is another option to pursue, presuming one access to a flatbed scanner, but you'd need photo editing software such as Adobe Photoshop to invert the image from a negative to a positive. A shortcut would be to use a digital camera to copy the negative and then use the same imaging program to invert and adjust the image.
Although we've discussed making paper negatives, using film is my preference in pinhole photography and again, this is a step one can do at home or send out to a lab to process. Keep in mind most aren't going to be using film in their paint can cameras since the film is difficult to find in that size and will be expensive. 4x5 and 120 pinhole cameras are more prevalent and film choices broader.
Using a pinhole camera takes you back to photography's early beginnings and brings some of the fun and pleasure back to the craft. You may very well make some memorable photographs with it. Another reason to think about getting into pinhole photography is the upcoming World Pinhole Photography Day on April 24 http://www.pinholeday.org/ There's so much more to discuss about pinhole photography that couldn't be covered here so please post comments or questions and we'll do our best to answer all of them.
Send your Pinhole camera pictures to us via our Flickr group or our online uploader
Fred Lum