Looking Through The Lens

This is the first unit of my Junior STEAM course Light Sound and Time. In the first unit, Light, we learned about, light!..what a shocker. We learned about the mechanics of electromagnetic spectrum and light waves. We also did some magic with trigonometry where we studied unit circles, similar triangles, and sine and cosine waves, as well as other equations in the branch of measuring waves in distance/angles. Our class also went on a Field Experience were we went to The Latin School to meet with their photography teacher Ms. Ross. We used their darkroom to develop our pictures. This FE was an important task to take in regards to or Action Project. For the first AP, we made a pinhole camera. We made the cameras in class and afterward took them to The Latin School where we took and built up the photographs. We at that point needed to figure the light and separation between the focal point and the subject we snapped a photo of in order to do our best in creating a functional camera. Although the odds were not in my favor on creating a functioning camera, it doesn't take away from the amazing experience I had.

Looking Through the Lens

How Does A Pinhole Camera Capture Light?

In order to figure out how a pinhole camera captures light, we will have to understand the fundamentals of light. Light is neither a particle or a wave as it is a duality of both meanings that light displays properties of waves at times and properties of traditional particles in others as light can be absorbed and changed by magnetic fields. Knowing this we can have a better sense on how light works when being perceived onto a camera. A pinhole camera is a kind of straightforward handcrafted camera. It comprises of a lightproof box, a manual screen, and a focal point. The pinhole camera can take pictures by setting your subject towards the camera and putting film inside the camera. At that point, you let light through the pinhole which lets a little measure of light into the totally dim camera, where the image gets absorbed by the film. The film is then created, and in the event that it works, you have successfully captured your subject. But in order to do so, the importance comes to the camera being completely light proof. The dark within the camera ensures all the light is ingested and the main light coming through will be through the pinhole. This will then ensure your image in picking up the independent light that we want. Once light gets into the pinhole camera we were asked if the light itself works as a reflection or refraction. By knowing that refraction can only occur when the light changes it's medium to another and that a reflection can only occur when the light is being reflected off we can conclude that a pinhole camera doesn't work in any of these ideas. A pinhole camera doesn't ever change it's medium as it's only going from air to air and we can also assure that the light from the pinhole camera absorbs the film instead of bouncing off or else there wouldn't be an image to see.

I chose to make my pinhole camera out of a box not knowing the challenges that come with it. Like I had stated up top its important to ensure that your box is lightproof in order to manipulate the light being captured. My box had several holes and folds that needed to be sealed and painted all black. I then took a vacant soft drink can and cut a hover out of it with an X-Acto blade. At that point, I utilized a stick and jabbed an opening through the aluminum to then sand it with sandpaper so everything was smooth. This became a hard task when it came to dealing with creating a seal that can open and close just like shutter would do on a camera. I ended up creating a flapping opening to work as my shutter.

The After(MATH)

Since the pinhole camera is low tech we needed to see for ourselves how far the subject has to be in order for the film to capture the entire subject. In order to receive this information, we measured the height of the tallest object, the height of the pinhole and the distance between the pinhole and the film. With these three measurements, we can know the distance of the object to the camera. 

GA, "calculations", 2019

Finished Product

GA, "Pinhole Camera", 2019

GA, "Image Captured", 2019