Pinhole Cameras

Pinhole photography has been around for an extremely long time. It was invented between 1000 and 1600. In around 1600, a lens was added to the camera by Giambattista della Porta.

You will need:

• An empty aluminium drinks can
• Black card
• Thick tape
• A pin/needle
• A dark room
• Light sensitive paper
• Chemicals (developer, stop bath, fix)
• Trays (for the chemicals)
• Tongs at each station
• Water

Step 1: Cut the top off of the can. Be careful of any sharp edges!

Step 2: Cut out a strip from the black card that is about 8cm x 21cm. Cut small slits along one of the longer edges of the strip and fold them over. Then cut out a circle of black card which is the same size as the can.

Step 3: Wrap the strip of black card around the base so that the cut side folds over the base of the can (the end that you didn't cut off). Then place the cut out circle on this and use the tape to secure and cover it. Keep adding tape until you are absolutely sure that no light can pass through.

Step 4: Take the lid that you just completed off of the bottom of the can and put onto the top of the can (the end which you cut off)

Step 5: Find a point about halfway on the can and poke a hole in it with the pin/needle. Take a small strip of the tape and put it over the pinhole so that no light can get through and make the paper overexposed.

Step 6: Switch on the red light in your dark room and take the lid off of the can. Take out a sheet of photographic paper and make sure to properly reseal the packet that it came from.

Step 7: Roll the paper lengthways so that the shiny/smooth side is on the inside of the roll. Make sure that the paper isn't covering the pinhole and put the lid back on, making sure that no light can get to the paper.

Step 8: Choose the location you are going to photograph. It is better to rest the can on a surface rather than holding whilst taking the photo so that it doesn't shake too much. Make sure that the pinhole is pointing at whatever you're going to photograph.

Step 9: Remove the tape that covers the pinhole and leave to expose for around 5 seconds (exposure time does depend on the size of the hole and the amount of light around the camera. You may have to experiment a few times to get this just right.)

Step 10: Back in the dark room, make sure that the normal light is turned off and the red light is turned on before taking the paper out of the can. Unroll the paper and put into the tray of developer for 1 minute. Make sure that it gets all over the paper.

Step 11: Remove the paper with the tongs and let the liquid drain off. Place into the stop bath for 30 seconds. When the time is up, take out with tongs and let it drain off again.

Step 12: Place in the fix bath and after 2 minutes, put it into the sink with clean water for about 5-10 minutes. Let the image dry. Done!

The box is completely dark inside, and if there is light source outside, a small dot will be created on the inside of the box (on the side that is opposite from the pinhole). The smaller, the pinhole is, the smaller and sharper the point of light will be. If the pinhole in the box is pointed at, for example, a landscape scene, that image of the landscape will be on the opposite side of the box from the pinhole and will also be an inverted and reversed image. The film is used to record whatever image comes in through the pinhole. 

The images are usually good and in-focus. But because the pinhole lets in so little light, the film usually has to be exposed for quite a long time to produce the image on it. The pinhole in the box acts as the lens. It makes all of the points that are producing light in the scene to form a point on the film. A regular camera uses an actual lens, and not a pinhole. This is because the lens creates a much larger hole that the light can go through onto the film. This means that the film can be exposed and produce an image a lot faster than the pinhole in the pinhole cameras can. Pinhole cameras can be made using quite a large number of things, including drink cans, shoe boxes, Pringles tubes, etc.

Vadim Samkov

Vadim Samkov, a pinhole photographer started taking these types of photos in 2005 whilst he was still in photography school. His teacher gave him a camera, and after he developed a few images, he became fascinated with the unpredictable results. He enjoys the surprises that pinhole photography can bring. He is currently living in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Objectively, this image shows a block of flats with a car parked outside. The perspective of the mage is warped and the picture is distorted as it does not look like this in real life. The image has quite a high contrast, which could be due to the way the paper has been distorted. There is clear outlines and shades in the image.
Subjectively, I feel that the block of flats is very uninviting, grey, and bleak. It is not somewhere that I would particularly want to live in and it doesn't look like a happy place.

Steve Irvine

Steve Irvine began working with clay in 1968. From 1971-1974, he attended the Sheridan College of Crafts and Design. Irvine has won several awards, including The John Mather Award, The Volunteer Service Award, FIREWORKS Purchase Awards, and many others. Another interest of his is pinhole photography.

"I enjoy photography as much as ceramics"

Objectively, this image shows a lone silhouette of a person standing in a dark tube/tunnel. At the end of the tunnel is light, and the person looks very small standing there.

Hilary Seatter

Hilary Seatter, another pinhole photographer lives and works in the Shetland Islands. She was born in Edinburgh and says that the ‘glorious fresh air and delightful surroundings’ from the Orkney Isles (where her grandfather was from, and also where she brought up her children) is what inspires her work. She runs a small mobile coffee business, which is what gave her the idea to give pinhole photography a go. As she cycled around where she lived she found inspiration for images and photos. In her final year of university, she took a collection of photos taken with an oatmeal camera. After taking her pictures, she decided to use a mixture of traditional pinhole photography digital, drawings, paintings, airbrushing and screen-printing, this became the prints for her own collection of interior fabrics which she designed.

My attempt:

For my attempt at pinhole photography, I used an empty drinks can with a hole in the side. We put the light sensitive paper in the can whilst in the dark room and made sure that no light could get inside the cans and then we went outside. For my first attempt, I estimated the exposure time to be about 5 seconds, which I later found out was too long and made the image over-exposed. This means that when I took it to be developed in the dark room, no image showed up and it was just a black piece of paper. Due to time restrictions, I didn't get another try but the next day I tried again with better results. I found that it was best to expose the paper for only a split second and this, for me, produced the best results. I found that with pinhole photography, there is very little control over how the image will turn out. However, I do believe that if we experimented further, we would improve.