Digital Pinhole Lens

Originally Published in DigitalniFoto Magazine, by Dennison Bertram


One of the oldest camera forms is the Pin-hole, or “natural” camera. The pinhole camera was mentioned as early as Leonardo DaVinci in his Codex Atlanticus and Manuscript D. The term Camera Obscura or “dark room” was first used by Johannes Kepler who used the term to describe a dark room or box with a small hole used by artists to draw landscapes, it wasn’t until the 1850’s that the first photographic pinhole image was created.

Pinhole cameras have had many periods of rise and fall in their popularity. The simplicity of the camera has always attracted artists and experimenters who enjoy the soft focus look of the pinhole. In 1979 the magazine ABC mladých techniků a přírodovědců published instructions for the construction of the Dirkon, a paper 35mm pinhole camera. Instructions for this camera can still be found on the internet: http://www.pinhole.cz Other photographers have built pinhole cameras from nearly everything imaginable- from cereal boxes, large buildings, cars to matchboxes, watches and even a persons mouth. In the digital age, pinhole photography is finding yet another renaissance. The ease that digital imagery has brought to photography, it has also brought to the art of the pinhole. If you have a digital SLR camera, it is easy to construct a pinhole lens that will allow you to try and experiment with pinhole photography.

Although pinhole lenss do not create sharp images, they have an infinite depth of field, making them ideal for landscape photography. The soft-focus effect of the pinhole also makes them ideal for soft subjects such as nudes, where the lens creates a sort of ethereal feeling. There are a variety of effects that you can also try with a pinhole camera that are impossible with traditional lenss. Multiple pinholes can be used to create kaleidoscopic images, as well pinholes in the shape of lines or stars.

Building the Lens:

1.First you'll need a 'body cap', the little piece of plastic that either came with your camera, or what you'll need to buy at the store. It works like a lens cap except instead of covering your lens is covers the camera. With the lens cap you'll need to use a knife or something and carve out the center of the cap.

2.Then take a piece of tin-foil cut in a small square and tape it down over the whole in the cap. Using a needle, poke a small hole through the foil. The advantage of taping the tin foil onto the cap is if you want to change pinholes or do a bad job making your hole, it's easy enough to switch. When making your first pinhole a small needle will do fine. Make sure it's smooth though, and as small as you can make it. There is a whole science behind the art of a perfect pinhole, but for now guessing will do fine. Just remeber in this setup the sharpness of your image is related to the smoothness and size of the hole.

3.Since you'll be using this on a digital camera (although it's works the same way on a traditional film SLR camera) it's important to remember that with digital,DUST is your enemy. The CCD chip inside your camera is charged during use with electrical current and the static electricity built up on the chip will suck dust into your camera very quickly, ruinning the quality of your images. To compensate for this, you can use a small filter over the top of your lens to help keep the dust out. Use a blower brush to clean the inside of the lens first. I got lucky and in this case the filter lens fit perfectly on top of the cap. I keep it attached with a couple pieces of sticky tack. Whatever works best for you. Keep in mind that occasionally the additional filter might add some flare or aberrations to the image that you might not want, but this depends on your lighting conditions and type of filter you use.

Tada! All done.

I know this isn't a digital camera in the picture, but I only have one digital camera so obviously I couldn't take a picture of it, with the lens.



Taking pictures:

When taking pictures, you’ll need to generally work with long exposure times as the aperture of pinholes tends to be incredibly large. Experiment with sunny days or strong direct flash. Additionally some Digital SLRs will let you shoot with your Pinhole lenss on aperture priority, automatically metering the light. Unfortunately the Nikon does not offer metering for non coupling lenss. :-( (I use a Nikon D70) But I did hear that canon does offer this feature. Most traditional film SLR's will meter automatically on aperture Priority.


Here's a picture I took with the lens.


Resources:

The Pinhole Community
Czech Pinhole Photography
Kodak's Website on Pinhole Photography
Pinhole Camera from a 110 cartridge
Pinhole Resource