My Homemade Camera!

For the first unit for the course Light, Sound & Time, we studied refraction, Snell’s law, Trigonometry, lab reports and light. We learned about the speed of light and how fast it goes. We also learned about frequencies, waves, electromagnetic spectrum, prism, colors, particles and how a camera is similar to the human eyeball. For our action project, we were assigned to create a pinhole camera. The camera's body can be a box, cardboard, metal, cylinder, etc. as long as you can open it and put (special) paper inside. At the end we will have created our own camera and have a picture from it developed in a dark room. During this project it was difficult to find a way to close the box so no light could come in but at the same time I needed a way to open it so I could put the film paper in and take it out. I also had difficulty finding a shutter speed that would create a good image. I learned how film is made, the process of it and how time consuming it is (9 minutes). I am proud of my calculations.

KIS. Camera. 2016.

The way my camera works is by capturing the light by opening a pinhole in the middle of my camera. The light then goes through the camera and shines on a special paper inside that will capture the image upside down. I leave it open for about two minutes to let the image develop then I close it. I put my hand over the hole to make sure no light enter as I make my way to the dark room. In the dark room there is no light allowed, only low yellow lights. In there I take out the film and put it in a process of four trays with chemicals that allows you to see the photo. Unfortunately my camera does not illustrate the idea of refraction because refraction only occurs when light goes from one medium to another, such as air to water or glass. It is super important to paint my camera black inside because when the light goes in it won’t reflect whereas if it were white it would reflect and the image wouldn’t come out as wanted.

My camera demonstrates wave vs. particle when the light hits the paper which will record the image. The light hits the paper as a particle and leaves photons behind which take part in the developing process. It demonstrates the electromagnetic spectrum, specifically the visible spectrum in terms of colors because it uses black to absorb the light and energy from the sun. The object I chose to photograph is a mini Eiffel Tower because I had it and because I like the Eiffel Tower. The distance from my lens to the photo paper is 8cm, the height of pinhole is 12cm, the height of the Eiffel Tower is 26cm and the distance from the camera to Eiffel Tower is 15cm.

 KIS. Similar Triangle. 2016.

                                           

                                                            KIS. Calculations. 2016.

For my first picture I used a shutter speed of 3 minutes and when I developed it, it came out black because it had been exposed to too much light. Then I tried again with a shutter speed of 1 minute, but it still came out dark when I developed it. That’s when I realized that my box wasn't covered well because light was getting in and that is what ruined my picture. If I could do it all over again I would choose a different box or a cylinder so that no light could come in and the opening would be different. I would also like to use less tape because after taping and untaping the same tape it loses the stickiness and that’s what probably happened to my camera.

KIS. Black Photo. 2016