Pin Hole Evaluation

In my evaluation I will be discussing the background of pin hole camera’s. What I have learnt from making them, my views of pin hole camera’s and the issues I had during our task, including how I overcome them.         

Pin hole cameras have been around for many years now. It’s basically a camera without a lens. Back when technology wasn’t invented, they came up with an idea to capture a still life image on to a piece of paper. People thought this was an impossible experiment to do, how can you freeze the world? Then one day a young man had a small box, a pin, and some shinny paper, and produced picture, after picture, of life, of still moving objects, of trees blowing in the wind, of people laughing, living there day to day life. People were astonished, amazed but what he had created and it became a world wide success. Though out the years the pin hole camera got more advanced, more technical. Moving on to cameras which have film built in. You simply press a button, go to the shop the next day and there you go, you have 20 photos in lying in front of you, all nicely produced. After them they made more advanced cameras, the Digital camera. A digital camera is a camera that takes still photographs by digitally recording images via an electronic image sensor which is built in the frame. These cannot only take photos but also record a picture for a certain amount of time, called ‘video’. They have even put cameras on phones. As the years go by cameras get more advanced, get more hi-tech as we can see. I am sure this will not stop any time soon. The old beloved Pin hole camera which started it all has made a big impact in the life, as we can now freeze real life and keep that as a frame.

People use these pictures for many things. To nature, fashion, still life, documentary, weddings, paparazzi, glamour, advertisement. Pin hole has played a massive part in all these categories. As I learnt when I was making my own Pin hole camera.

When I was making my pin hole camera, I found it very easy and fun to do. I didn’t really find anything hard about the task, expect producing the pictures. I didn’t find this hard, necessarily, but I found the anticipation of waiting for the pictures to produce, seeing if they have worked or not, a bit gruelling. Yet, every time I went up to the dark room to produce my pictures I was a little bit excited as well. This was because I couldn’t wait to see what my pin hole camera has took for me. Also, as this was my first time exploring the pin hole camera made it more exciting to do. I took three photos. One came out really good, how I wanted it to be and the other two wasn’t how I hoped. One only came out with a few black dots. I think this was because I under exposed it. I didn’t leave the camera out longer enough. The other photo had some life on it but this time I over exposed. I left my camera one minute extra to make sure but because of this my photo came out mostly all black except a few details her and there. I found the time limit a bit hard to do. As no one knows how long your pin hole camera needs, its really all about simple guessing and hoping. This was a bit annoying and frustrating at times but I just simply got on with it, tried to keep to the time the teacher’s recommended me, and kept my mind opened mined.


My conclusion of pin hole camera task. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would happily do it again if I was asked to, as we got to use our creative and imaginative side, also the actually fact that we our selves, our making a real life camera with our own hands, that produces real still life imagers. Which to me seemed impossibly a few weeks ago. I have learnt that you don’t need a fancy camera with all the fancy gadgets on; you just need a box, pin and some photographic paper. Which will produce the same quality as a digital camera.  I also learnt how to be more patient with my work. I will get the job done better if I just take my time and wait when I need to. As I wasn’t happy with all my final photos, I have learnt not to judge myself. This was the first time I have experienced the pin hole camera so I wouldn’t expect a great photo, even though I over exposed and un exposed, I have almost ‘learnt from my mistakes’. Next time I will make sure I time them properly, if they don’t come out as was hoped I will just simply start again till I am happy with them. Over all I really enjoyed making my pin hole camera and producing pictures from scratch, and would happily do it again if asked.

Pin Hole Camera

Step 1- The very first thing I did to make my Pin hole camera, was to bring in a small cardboard box from home. This will be used as the frame of the camera.

Step 2- I then decided were my camera lens is going to be, drawed a small rectangle shape, then cut it out with scissors.

Step 3- After that i got black paint and painted all the inside of my box, black. This is so no light will reflect of the box, on to the lens and affect my pictures.

Step 4- When the paint has dried, the teacher gave us all a small bit aluminium viol, which will cover the cut out rectangle shape. This is the 'lens'. Its were my photos will be taking and produced.


Step 5- I then sealed my box with black masking tape, as well as sealing any open areas which will cause light to come through. This is because we don’t want any light reflecting on the aluminium viol (lens) as it will affect the picture.

Step 6- The final thing was to create a 'shutter' which will cover the lens so no light will get through. I did this by using a small bit of cardboard, same size as the aluminium viol. Stuck one side of the shutter near the lens and left the side free, so you can open or shut it. I did however stuck a small bit of duck tape
On the open side so when u want to close it, it will stay, it won’t flap around.

Step 7-After that we went into the 'dark room' were all our pictures will be produced. And cut out some photographic paper which is the 'camera film', and stuck it inside of my box, then sealed it with black duck tape, sop no light is getting through.

Step 8-As I have now finished making my pin hole camera, we went out in two's to take the pictures. My first picture I took was outside of the college near the car park, on the grass, looking over some bushes to the college. I had to leave my pin hole camera for no more then 15 seconds, which I timed on my phone. After the 15 seconds was up I quickly closed my shutter so I don’t over expose it.

Step 9- As I have now took my picture I went back to the dark room to develop and see what it has come out as. I undone the duck tape, took out my photographic paper and quickly put it in one of the three liquids. The first one was, developer, leave it in there for at least 30 seconds, then moved the picture to stop, then fix, then finally stop again.

Step 10- Then finally I have got my photos. I can see what they look like, if they came out as well as I want them to and I can see what I have done wrong e.g. left them for to long or not longer enough, my pin hole is letting through light, so on.

This is one of the photos I took with my pin whole camera. It’s just outside of the college, on the grass looking over to some near by bushes.



Step 11- After I took all the pictures I scanned them on to my computer, onto Adobe Photoshop, were I got to adjust my photos. I cropped them, capturing only the detailed bit, and then I inverted each one so I had a positive and a negative of each photo.
 

This is the same photo from above but I uploaded it on Photoshop and inverted the image. This makes it a negative to a positive. To do this I simply highlighted the whole picture, right clicked on the down button on the left hand side of the screen next to 'masks' and go down to invert and click.

Then finally you have completed pictures with an Invert of each.