How to make a camera obscura with your own hands: two detailed life hacks. How to make a camera obscura from a matchbox
There is an expression: “photographic precision” because it is believed that nothing can be more objective than photography. But actually it is not. What photographs convey is far from reality itself. Perhaps, photographs similar to Vermeer's paintings more accurately correspond to it. You can get them using a tin can with a neat hole. How exactly, says NS photo editor Vyacheslav LAGUTKIN.
What did Leonardo da Vinci encrypt?
Heavy army transport rolled through the summer. Inside, in complete darkness, a conscript soldier was lost. There was a smell of heated tarpaulin, tires, boots and road. Suddenly, at a turn, a ray of sun hit through a hole in the awning, and inverted images of houses, trees, and figures of people ran along the side of the truck. So twenty years ago I came across the phenomenon of the camera obscura.
This visual effect has been known to mankind for thousands of years. The Chinese philosopher Mo Tsu described this phenomenon in the fifth century BC. Aristotle, observing the same effect, was never able to comprehend its cause. Individual mentions of the creation of the first apparatus reproducing this phenomenon point to Roger Bacon (13th century). Leonardo da Vinci wrote about how to use this device in painting in his encrypted works, but they were able to unravel his secret writing only in 1797. Nevertheless, information about how you can use a camera obscura to copy reality spread among artists even before the beginning of the 17th century. In a dark room with a hole in the wall, the outside view was projected onto the opposite wall. All that remained was to select the paints and apply them to the image. Many landscapes, portraits, and still lifes were painted this way. The use of a camera obscura is clearly visible in the work of the great Dutch artist Jan Vermeer. Experts confirm that, for example, in the portrait of “The Girl in the Red Hat,” Vermeer conveys diffuse highlights that are characteristic of a pinhole. The same technique is also indicated by numerous clusters of light spots in another painting by Vermeer, “View of Delft.”
By the mid-17th century, portable pinhole cameras appeared, equipped with lenses to increase color brightness, sharpness and contrast.
Rear view of a pinhole camera (later called pinhole) with the top and back covers removed
Nowadays, photographers, fed up with the harsh, textured image of conventional lens lenses, have rediscovered the camera obscura, which is now called a pinhole or stenope.
This is not a can! It's a camera!
What attracted Vermeer's camera obscura? And why do modern photographers abandon expensive lenses for a box with a hole? The camera obscura has many advantages: one of them is the production of an unusually soft and plastic image, devoid of excess specificity. All this, of course, provided that the dimensions of the hole are accurate and the edges are even.
Another advantage is that the stenope does not need to be sharpened, because there is no lens in it, and the depth of field is infinite. That is, everything is sharp - from what is located a few centimeters away to the horizon.
Lyudmila Zinchenko. Red Square. 2008 Silver Camera Award. Photo taken by pinhole
Optical distortions, such as chromatic aberration (a light fringe along the contour of a contrasting image), will never bother a photographer with a stenope, unlike colleagues using lens lenses. Also, if the film is placed at the same distance from the hole (bent in an arc), perspective distortions will be corrected.
You can make your own walls from coffee and soda cans, barrels and refrigerators, cars and vans, matchboxes and shoe boxes. And, of course, from cameras (one must keep in mind that the larger the pinhole, the more detailed the image).
How to make a camera obscura with your own hands
A Canon 400 D SLR digital camera was taken as a sample for making a pinhole based on a camera. In its place there can be any camera with changeable optics |
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| In the cover-plug, which is used to protect the camera when the lens is removed, a hole with a diameter of up to 1 cm must be made exactly in the center | |
| The pinhole lens - a plate with a hole - must be attached from the inside, that is, to the side of the plug facing the inside of the camera. It is better if the surface of the plug, or “lens,” is not shiny, but black or matte | |
| This completes the lens for the stenographer |
Such a camera can be almost any camera. If it is a camera with interchangeable optics such as “Zenit”, “Kiev”, Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Minolta, “Zorkiy”, FED, etc., it is enough to remove the lens and use a cap, which is used to cover the camera for protection when the lens is removed. A hole with a diameter of up to 1 cm must be made in the plug exactly in the center, and the “lens” for the stenope - a plate with a hole - must be attached from the inside, that is, to the side of the plug facing the inside of the chamber. It is important to ensure that the inside of the plug, as well as the “lens,” does not have light shiny surfaces; it is better if they are black and matte. Helpers here are sandpaper, velvet, paint, glue. You can buy end caps at any major camera store and they are cheap. A very simple option is to cover the hole under the lens on the camera with black paper with a hole of the required size exactly in the middle.
If the camera lens is non-removable, you can dismantle it or simply remove the lenses and aperture blades and install a plate with a hole in it. “Lyubitel”, “Smena”, “Iskra”, and “Moscow” are suitable for this purpose.
The photographer will use a tin can or his own room as a wall, having previously darkened it and made a hole in the curtains opposite a huge sheet of photosensitive material (photo paper or film), rolled out across the entire wall, will make one hole or several in different places (the image is bizarrely repeated and superimposed on itself), depends only on his capabilities and imagination. Finally, you can order a branded pinhole online - a beautiful wooden box with a perfect hole in the side. The pleasure is not cheap - on average 200 euros.
Features of pinhole photography
Having chosen the subject of photography, you need to point the pinhole at it (after setting it motionless) and open the hole. With long exposures, film of different sensitivities, for example 100 and 400 units, is equalized, which eliminates the need to choose. In good daylight, the shutter speed can be 10-15 seconds, in bright sun - 2-4 seconds, while in the evening or in a dimly lit room - from 8-15 minutes (dim electric light) to 1 hour or more. At the end of shooting, you should close and move the film to the next frame if you do not want to achieve fancy effects through multiple exposures. The exact time of shooting, of course, can be determined by a camera with exposure metering or an exposure meter (branded pinholes even have special signs for calculating shutter speed), but selecting shutter speed experimentally (several dozen frames in different lighting conditions) is quite reliable and simple, especially if the pinhole is homemade.
A photo taken with the pinhole whose manufacturing process is shown above
What is so attractive about this type of photography? Firstly, incomprehensible simplicity: no complex mechanics, electronics, autofocus multi-lens optics - just a box with a hole and film loaded into it.
Secondly, unpredictability: the absence of a viewfinder, and therefore the ability to build a composition in the frame, implies shooting “at random”, “on a whim” - with a live, immediate picture as a result.
And, finally, thirdly, contemplation: long exposures, characteristic of pinhole, do not tolerate fuss and easily set one in a leisurely philosophical mood.
A pinhole, unlike a camera, allows you to capture not a moment, but a state. In fact, this temple on Valaam is full. But only those who stood still for an hour appeared in the form of penumbra on the film, and those who came out are not visible on the film
Glossary of photographic terms
Pinhole(from the English pinhole, pin - pin, hole - hole) - a hollow darkened chamber with a small hole (often made with a pin) to obtain an image when light passes through the hole. Used in artistic photography. The same as stenope (from the French Sténopé).
Obscura, camera obscura(from Latin obscurus - dark) is an incorrect but widespread name for pinhole. Historically, a pinhole was a camera with a small lens rather than a pinhole.
Multiple exposure-- multiple shooting per frame.
Exposure metering-- measurement of light, taking into account the sensitivity of the film or matrix to determine shutter speed (time of shooting) and aperture (size of opening for shooting). When shooting with a pinhole, only the shutter speed is determined, since the aperture, i.e. the hole, is constant.
Light meter-- exposure metering device.
Chromatic aberration-- optical distortion in the form of a light outline along the edge of a contrasting image (the border between light and dark). Occurs due to differences in light wavelengths.
What does this experience prove? That light spreads in straight lines: rays from the top of the object and rays from the bottom of it intersect in the hole of the shield and go further so that the first rays are at the bottom, and the second at the top. If the rays of light were not straight, but were bent or broken, something completely different would result.
It is remarkable that the shape of the hole does not affect the resulting images at all. Whether you drill a round hole or make a square, triangular, hexagonal or similar hole, the image you get on the screen is the same. Have you ever observed oval light circles on the ground under a dense tree? These are nothing more than images of the sun drawn with rays that pass through various spaces between the leaves. They are round because the sun is round, and elongated because they fall to the ground obliquely. Place a sheet of paper at right angles to the rays of the sun - you will get completely round spots on it. And during a solar eclipse, when the dark ball of the moon moves toward the sun, obscuring it and turning it into a bright crescent, round spots under the trees turn into small crescents.
The device that photographers at the beginning of the century used is nothing more than the same camera obscura, but only a lens is inserted into its hole to make the image brighter and clearer. In such a chamber, frosted glass is inserted into the back wall, on which images are obtained - of course, upside down; the photographer can only view it by covering the camera and himself with dark matter so that extraneous light does not interfere with the eyes.
You can make some semblance of such a photographic camera yourself...
Materials and accessories :
Two sheets of thick cardboard measuring 48x37 cm and 30.5x19.5 cm, glue, adhesive tape, measuring ruler, pencil, knife.
Manufacturing
- Draw a camera layout on the first sheet of cardboard (see figure).
- Draw diagonals on the square protrusion of the reamer and draw a circle with a diameter of 1 cm centered at the intersection of the diagonals.
- Using a knife, cut out the entire development and the circle on the protrusion.
- Make cuts with a knife along the fold lines indicated by the dotted line, up to half the thickness of the cardboard.
- Bend the walls and glue them together using paper strips or adhesive tape.
- Cover the round hole with thick black paper.
- Insert a movable screen into the open end of the box, which you make from a second sheet of cardboard, having previously drawn a scan on it (Fig.).
- Cut out this scan and the square shown inside the dotted line.
- Cover the square with writing paper and then grease it with oil. You will get a screen.
- After making cuts along the dotted lines with a knife, bend the walls and glue them together. You will get a second box, which should fit into the first box quite freely.
- In the center of the circle, first pierce the black paper with a thin needle. The camera obscura is ready.
- Point the camera obscura at some brightly lit objects and capture images of the objects on the screen by sliding the screen in or out.
- Enlarge the size of the round hole in the black paper and watch how the image of the objects changes.
- Observe how the clarity of the image changes with the distance to objects.
- Get images of moving objects, for example, on the street. Do the images come out in color?
- Replace the oiled paper with plain clean paper and draw the outline of any object on it.
- Try turning a camera obscura into a camera.
>>Laboratory work No. 9. Manufacturing of the simplest optical device
Subject
Goal of the work: understand the principle of operation of a camera obscura, make a camera obscura and use it to obtain an image of a luminous object.
Equipment: cardboard box, translucent paper (parchment, tracing paper), pushpin, glue, scissors, candle (one per class).
Theoretical information
The camera obscura (or, as it is sometimes called, the pinhole camera) is one of the simplest optical devices.”
The operating diagram of this device was found in the robots of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (IV century BC), as well as the Chinese philosopher Mo Ti (V century BC). The camera obscura is considered the forerunner of the modern camera.
A camera obscura is a chest with a small hole in one of the walls, and a translucent screen on the opposite wall.
Camera obscura - from lat. camera - room, obscura - dark. In modern science museums, a camera obscura is a room into which spectators can enter. Pinhole camera - from English. pinhole camera - a camera with a hole.
The wall with the hole is called the front wall, since it is the one that is turned towards the object in question. The wall with the screen on which the image of the object is obtained is called the back wall.
The action of a pinhole camera is based on the law of rectilinear propagation of light.
In Fig. I you see the object AB and its image A 1 B 1, obtained on the screen of the camera obscura K. From each point of the object AB, a narrow beam of light passes through the hole O (in order not to overload the picture, light beams are shown that come only from the extreme points of the object , - A and B).
Each of these beams creates a bright spot on the screen, the shape of which coincides with the shape of the hole. Such specks, superimposed on one another, form a picture on the screen that recreates the contours and details of the object. This picture is called an optical image of an object.
It should be noted that the clarity of the resulting image is affected by the size of the hole in the front wall of the camera. Maximum image clarity can be achieved when each point is again depicted as a point. That is, the smaller the specks appear on the screen, the sharper the image of the object will be.
Directions for use
- Preparing for the experiment
Before you start making a camera obscura, prepare the necessary materials: a cardboard box (for example, a tea or juice box), translucent paper (tracing paper or parchment), glue, scissors, a pushpin.
- Experiment
1. Take a cardboard box and cut out a small window for the screen in one of its walls (Fig. 2).
2. Finish making the back wall of the camera obscura by covering the window with tracing paper (Fig. 3).
3. On the opposite wall of the box, using a push pin, make a hole with a diameter of approximately 1 mm (Fig. 4). The simplest camera obscura is ready!
4. In a darkened room, point the camera at a lit candle and get an image of the flame on the screen.
5. Look at the image. Pay attention to whether the image is upright or inverted, enlarged or reduced, clear or blurry.
6. Describe the resulting image.
- Analysis of experimental results
Make a conclusion, indicating the name of the optical device you made, as well as what the operating principle of this device is, what law of optics this operating principle is based on.
- Additional task
1. Investigate how the size of the hole in the front wall of a pinhole camera affects image quality.
For this:
a) expand the chamber inlet to 15 mm;
b) prepare separate sheets of cardboard with holes of 3 mm, 5 mm and 10 mm;
c) alternately placing sheets of cardboard with holes of different diameters against the front wall of the chamber and observe the clarity of the image.
Draw a conclusion by illustrating it with an explanatory drawing.
2. Improve your device so that the screen can be moved, moving it closer or further from the hole. To do this, use the same or larger box.
Physics. 7th grade: Textbook / F. Ya. Bozhinova, N. M. Kiryukhin, E. A. Kiryukhina. - X.: Publishing house "Ranok", 2007. - 192 p.: ill.
Lesson content lesson notes and supporting frame lesson presentation interactive technologies accelerator teaching methods Practice tests, testing online tasks and exercises homework workshops and trainings questions for class discussions Illustrations video and audio materials photographs, pictures, graphs, tables, diagrams, comics, parables, sayings, crosswords, anecdotes, jokes, quotes Add-ons abstracts cheat sheets tips for the curious articles (MAN) literature basic and additional dictionary of terms Improving textbooks and lessons correcting errors in the textbook, replacing outdated knowledge with new ones Only for teachers calendar plans training programs methodological recommendationsToday we will tell you how to make such a pinhole camera from your own room. Most often this device is called " camera obscura", which means “dark room” in Latin. In fact, it is the “dark room” that we will create. First, we cover the window with thick material. We used large pieces of cardboard, but in the end the light insulation was insufficient and we had to additionally seal the cracks with regular food foil.
Sealing the cracks turned out to be such a tedious task that it would probably be easier to just cover the window completely with foil and not bother with cardboard. It is lighter than cardboard and holds better (regular tape is enough).
So we created a completely dark room, which, by the way, is very useful on white nights. All that remains now is to let light through a small hole. Here we are faced with a choice. The smaller the hole, the sharper the image, but at the same time darker (less light passes through). As the aperture is enlarged, the brightness of the image increases, but the sharpness decreases. We chose a hole approximately equal to the diameter of a ten-kopeck coin.
That's it, the camera is ready. On the wall opposite the window you get this inverted image of the street.
In this image, the brightness approximately corresponds to the brightness that we observed. All this was done in winter, when there is always little light outside, but in summer the image would, of course, be brighter. In order to better distinguish the details, we will demonstrate an image taken at a longer shutter speed.
For good perception, it is better when the walls are painted evenly. We didn’t repaint the walls or tear off the wallpaper, but for more comfortable viewing, we projected the image onto a gray screen.
Of course, you can see the image not only on the wall opposite the window, but also on the remaining walls, as well as on the ceiling and floor. In this photograph, for example, you can see a car parking lot near the house, which was projected on the ceiling in close proximity to the window.
Parked cars and the path are clearly visible. It is very convenient to lie on the bed to check if the car has been stolen. In addition, such an image will not cause much discomfort due to its inversion, as happened with the houses in the previous photographs. It all looks quite funny, like a movie on the big screen.
Good luck with your experiments!
In this article I will tell you how to make a camera obscura from a matchbox and homemade materials.
It should be noted that such a camera does not have depth of field, but this does not deprive the photograph taken with a pinhole of volume, not at all, rather it fills the picture with its unique artistic atmosphere. The principle of operation is very simple, light from the subject of shooting passes through the hole and hits the photosensitive material, that is, the film, which results in a kind of projection of the image.
What do you need to make such a camera?
Matchbox
Film 35mm
A little plastic from any bottle
Any aluminum can
Stationery knife
Empty film container
Insulating tape
Pencil
Scissors
Ruler
The first thing you need to do is mark and cut out a frame window in the inside of the box, for me it was 36 x 24 mm, but here you can make the shape arbitrarily, some also make 24 x 24 mm, as you like.
After you have cut out the frame window, you need to paint the inside of the box black, you can use any paint, marker or ink. I used matte acrylic spray paint, I didn’t try glossy, in my opinion it will create unnecessary glare. You may notice that the edges of the frame window on the inside of the box are torn, this will reflect in the photo and give a more artistic look. If desired, they can be smoothed with a file or a utility knife.
How to rewind a frame? In order to control this process, the following is done: cut out a thin ribbon from a plastic bottle and smooth it with your fingers, so it curls. We sharpen it on one of the edges.
We attach it to the barrel with electrical tape and insert it into the hole in the film, as shown in the photo. The plastic tape must be secured well so that it does not jump out of the hole when rewinding, and you also need to make sure that the film does not tear. When rewinding, clicks will be heard, so if you have a frame window measuring 36 x 24 mm, you need to count eight clicks (nine to be on the safe side) and you can photograph a new frame. If the frame window is 24 x 24 mm, six clicks are counted.
Let's return to the matchbox, now we need to prepare the outer part, make markings and cut a rectangular hole 8 x 5 mm in the center.
The most important detail of the camera is a correctly made hole, which is responsible for the sharpness of the frame; the smaller it is, the sharper the frame will be. You need to cut a 15 x 15 mm square from an aluminum can and carefully pierce the hole with a needle, then be sure to remove any burrs from the back side. And if you bring the aluminum plate to the window, the hole should be barely visible.
Be sure to paint everything black, the fewer light areas there are, the better the quality of the frame, you also need to paint the hole itself with a black marker so that the sun’s rays do not glare when hitting the metal surface.
Let's start assembling our miracle camera, using electrical tape to place an aluminum blank with a hole on the outside of the matchbox, preferably fixing it exactly in the center so that the light beam spreads across the entire frame. Let's take another matchbox and make markings, cut out a 15 x 8 mm rectangle, cut the cardboard and attach it to our camera obscura with electrical tape. Another important detail is the shutter itself, thick cardboard 10 x 30 mm should tightly cover the camera opening.
To rewind, you need to make a handle out of cardboard and tighten it with electrical tape, the size is approximately 5 x 20 mm.
We install the film and secure the inside of the box, and do not forget to check the operation of the frame counter; if you hear clicks, then you can secure everything with electrical tape.
It is impossible for the light to hit the film; it is advisable to use black electrical tape, but due to lack of availability, I had to use green, do not skimp on electrical tape because the quality of the pictures is at stake. We secure everything.
You need to take pictures from a tripod or with a good focus; the slightest movement blurs the frame and makes it unclear. (how to make a photo sharp - read) When photographing with a pinhole, you need to be able to determine by eye how many seconds to open the shutter, while you can count the seconds to yourself. If the day is sunny and the film is sensitive, then I open the shutter for four, five seconds, if it’s cloudy, seven, eight. I got some good shots the first time. Try it, I'm sure you won't regret it.
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