A camera made out of a shoe box?

        In light, sound and time we have been focusing on light. We talked about the electromagnetic spectrum which is a range of frequencies of electromagnetic radiation and their respective wavelengths photon energies. We also learned the different part of the eye and the different functions. We also learned new math strategies that could help us with calculating. For example we learned about the unit circle. With that we decided to create a pinhole camera. A pinhole camera is a camera without a lens but it has a tiny aperture. It is all black inside so that no light peaks through. A common use for a pinhole camera is to capture the movement of the sun over a long period of time. A pinhole camera can easily be made with things around your house. 

All you are going to need is a box or cylinder or some kind. Black paint, Thin piece of metal, and a thumb tack, and black tape. First, you are going to want to grab your thin piece of metal and sand it.  Then, you are going to want to poke a small hole in it with your thumb tack. This is going to act like your lens. Third, you are going to paint your box black. the reason for this is so to avoid any reflection of the entering light onto the photographic material. After this you need to make a cut in the front of the box, this is where your lens is going to go. Then you need to make a shutter, you can cut a piece of cardboard and then wrap it in black tape. You are going to stick this over the lens, this is so when you are not using the camera yet, no light is going to go inside. The last thing to do is cover any holes where light might be getting in the box. 

After the building process it should look something like this. 

 

(EM, pinhole camera, 2022)

  

                                                                                             (EM, pinhole camera, 2022)

We then made a dark room in our school bathroom. We put photo paper in our box and had to make sure it was dark when we did so. After this we went outside to take a picture of our object. I chose to take a picture of my perfume bottle because I thought it was simple and it was a pretty bottle. I went outside and set up my camera and object and then opened the shutter for five minutes. I then closed the shutter after those five minutes and went to the dark room. I had to make sure I got no light in the box or else it would mess up the picture. When I went into the darkroom I took the picture out of my box and put it in some chemicals to develop it and then rinsed it off. 

  Attempt 1:                                                                                   

As you can see my first attempt was a fail. The picture came out completely black. I think the reason for this was because I either had some light coming in or I made my lens hole too big. So I decided to make a new lens and add extra tape around the box to make sure it was completely black. 

                                              

This was my second attempt after I had fixed what I thought might have gone wrong with the first attempt. It still came out dark but if you look close enough you can slightly see the outline of my perfume. What had happened with this one was when I went to take off the shutter I accidentally lifted the top of the box so light got into the box. I feel like I could have used a smaller box and maybe it would have came out better. 

Below are some measurements from my pinhole camera: 

the distance from the pinhole to the photo paper: 8 inches

 height of your pinhole: 1.5 inches 

 height of your object: 4 inches  

distance between camera and object: 14 inches 

 Overall, I really liked this experience. I do wish it could have camera out better but it was fun making the camera and taking pictures that you could develop with it. I would redo this at home, I would try it with a smaller box and maybe a different object. I would also be more careful and make sure no light gets in the box.  I would recommend if you can to try this at home and see what results you get.