How to make and use a pinhole camera?

Question

I read the wikipedia article on pinhole cameras and it sounds extremely interesting. I've never made one, and I've never developed photos or anything before. Do you know a good website that has really good info about pinhole cameras? Do you need to buy special stuff? Film or something?

Answer 1

I have recently made one, it uses photographic paper (only in black&white) because film is more dificult to develop, and the box of the camera has to be more complex. The problem of photographic paper is that, when you take a picture, to take the next one, you have to go to the darkroom and put a new sheet.

First you have to learn to develop. I have never had photography classes. I have learned the basic for how to develop photographic paper only by reading articles in the internet. I am not any "expert", but the important is that the result of the pictures is more than acceptable!
It's easy, first you have to decide where your darkroom should be. I develop my photos in the bathroom. It has to be completly dark only with a red light bulb turned on. I have four tanks. One with the developer (you put the photo here for about 1mn), then you have the stop bath (insted of buying it I use 0,5L of water for about 2 drops of vinegar). It stays in the stop bath for about 30secs. Then it goes to the fixer for about 2mn. Finally you put the photographic paper in water to "clean" it from all the chemicals.
Now you haver you photo developed, you should put it in a drying cabinet. The photo you have developed is the negative, now you have to make the positive. Usually, I use photoshop for that, it's much more easier, but if you want to do it manually, you should (in the dark) put a clean sheet of photographic paper, with the brilliant side up, and you put the negative over this sheet, with the print side turned down. You turn the light on for about 5secs or less (the light of the bulb shouldn't be very strong) and you develop the sheet of photographic paper.

For more complete answers search for information in the internet, you will find it!

For making the camera I recommend you this website:
http://www.pinhole.cz/

For examples of cameras and photos go to:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=pinhole&w=all

Answer 2

There are about 3 million + listings on the web for making a pinhole camera.

An alternative, if you have a camera with interchangeable lenses, is a pinhole body cap. You can find them on ebay.

To develop your own negatives requires equipment you'll have to buy. Then you'll need an enlarger to make the prints - and all this has to be set up in a darkroom. Its easier if you use 35mm film or your digital camera.

Of course, you can always take a basic photography course at your local high school or community college. Then you'll have access to all the equipment you'll need.

Answer 3

If you own a SLR camera, a pinhole camera is very easy to recreate. Simply replace the lens with a black cardboard with a tiny hole in it. Exposure with this sort of camera is more like trial and error, but the images are nice and soft.

Try this experiment. Rather than one hole, punch two or three holes. Each hole will act like a lens and the result is a multiple exposure of superimposing images in one shot. This type of shot looks best when photographing bright objects in a black background, such as the moon.