Lomography

Pinhole Camera, Jonathan Polkest artist

A pINHOLE CAMERA is a camera without a lens. An extremely small hole takes its place, usually more effectively drilled or formed in very thin material, like brass shim, coke tin is perfect when flattened.An images light from a scene passes through this single point and because there is no lens, the image on the light sensitive material will be upside-down, ,and clear at all distances from the pinhole. The smaller the hole (aperture) , the sharper the image,(as long as the focal distance is not too long) but the longer the required length of exposure will be. Also in order to produce a reasonably clear image, the ratio of the pinhole, or aperture, size to the distance between it and the screen should be 1/100 or less. The shutter of a pinhole camera is usually manually operated because of the lengthy times, and can consist of a flap of some light proof material to cover and uncover the pinhole.Typical exposure times range from 5 seconds to hours and sometimes days. A common use of a pinhole camera is to capture the movement of sunlight over a long period of time, this type of photography is called Solargraphy. The image may be projected on a transluscent screen for real time viewing, made popular when solar eclipses are imminent.