How To Make a 6-month duration Pinhole Camera

this is how to make a Viacom camera specifically for doing a six month duration photo one thing about these cameras is they'll be out in the wind and the rain for six months so they gotta be of some sort of like fairly Hardy material and the best you can use is aluminium or aluminum and call it if you want that's actually a proper word for an hi one not a coca-cola one because the high ones enable the sort of five by seven photographic paper to fit it perfectly and not steel either steel is the magnetic one on a fridge door this is non-magnetic so an aluminium beer can is the right height and right one to you you take the top off now there is a way really good technique taking the top off an aluminium can really safely and you can end up with a nice smooth edge probably show you that in a later later time empty that can obviously first which is the most important bit and you've got your empty aluminium can wash it out try it then use a piece of card that is a for 210 millimeter outer diameter of a can strange but true it's 210 millimeter so it's a piece of a4 black light type card and then you just basically cut notches down it don't worry about how many don't chop your finger off ah like that go fold them over three everything goes falls over any cut notches like that dead easy then you cut yourself a really bad circle just something really hopeless and a bit pathetic like that and this gets made into the light proof cap turn the can upside down and then if you learn nothing else learn how to tear Gaffa tape yeah your litter of life if you can use Gaffa tape then you don't need anything and each dovetail joints or anything put your thumb on the edge and pull apart you can imagine there's a sort of fold there and you're pulling people apart and tearing it that will tear the gaff Atene quite well fold this around the base the most tricky bit about this when you're teaching kids to do it is tearing Gaffa tape that's why we often the adult supervision and you put the actual tape over there don't tape it to the can just have it so it's loose like that you'll often then find these notches are pointing upwards lift it up crease them so they're nice and flat and horizontal that means there's less light going through then you're really badly cut circle goes on top don't forget to put that on top people often do then it's really a case of death by gaffer tape gaffer tape you put it onto something dry it stays waterproof so that's why it's really nifty stuff and you can give it fairly cheap one bit like that again don't take the lid for the can and now you're all going to be really tempted to do it crossways don't do it on a sort of jaunty angle and then you use less skaffa so you can get away with free bits of gaffer like that and in the last bit or a lovely noise you actually put this bit higher sharp so it's people again what to try and be neat to don't try be neat so you have it so it's going over the top a bit and then you fold this down like that and then just because you might as well because by now you'd be obsessed with using up as much gaffer tape as possible put the last bit on top like that that leg comes off and goes over the top for your light proof lid then easy and by that time you also learnt how to tear gaffer tape which is essential right next bit is making the pinhole don't worry too much there's half a ton of maps about this but my mathematics are use a pin okay find a point on the canned you can identify so here I'm going to do it half way up yeah and it's going to be the letter M of premium some reason when pushing the pin in hold it push the pin in exactly at that direction okay so it's parallel don't let people push it in like that you can go like this and then go bang you get pin anyway wouldn't happen probably but I just don't want to see it happen so you push the pin in and the maps are push the pin in take the pin out that's the maps okay and you've got a really smallish hole about 1/2 2 millimeters in diameter it doesn't matter okay don't worry about the mouse the next bit is making a little light proof shutter so you get some insulation tape which is like proof small bit like that now it's sticky there and making a shutter you fold it onto itself so you have a sticky bit yeah and a non sticky bit and you stick the sticky bit over the hole and shutter don't stick the bit beside it stick the sticky bit over the hole that is your pinhole panel [Music] what you put inside the can is light sensitive photographic paper don't think it's the same photographic paper you put through inkjet printers and stuff this is light sensitive the same stuff that been using for hundreds of years okay get it online basically most camera shops don't restock it but what you need to know is it's five by seven inches not centimeters because we don't do that and semi max not glossy use glossy you end up with look black lines and you want that after six months exposure so five by seven semi matte black and white photographic paper it's not color black and white normally you would actually only open that box under the red safe light it's sensitive the blue light but since the photographic paper is going to be in here for six months of the Sun pointing at it yeah it's a peculiar thing that's basically you can almost do this are in normal lighting not in sunlight but in lighting like we have here where it's quite bright and stuff it will be fine to get a piece of photographic paper out and put it inside here now the photographic paper will top it sitting in the light for too long but the photographic paper will kill light the way around the inside with about a one centimeter gap and that gap is where the pin hold it so you're not going to end up the picture a black dot is going to be a gap where the pinhole is the actual picture you get is going to be about a hundred and sixty degree really wide angle and the paper curls right the way around on the inside so we get the photographic paper out now it is oops I'm not going to wave at you too long you put it in I can put the finger in there I can feel the scratchiness where the hole is I know therefore that the photographic paper isn't covering the hole and I put the lid on but it's fine you could do that of a whole class you can do it with about 20 people just get them to keep their cameras open one after another photo paper in lid on don't leave the paper lying around too long because like it does go dark even under artificial light but you don't need to worry about a red light just not sunlight okay what this stuff does and I'm going to show you here is it goes dark when light touches it so I'm just going to put this on it's rather like getting a suntan over a long period of time it goes darker and darker so over maybe in ten minutes you'll see there's an image that's appear what's happened is all of it has gone dark we can't see it yet except for where I put this and is after a few minutes and this is what effect is that happens inside the camera over a long period of time so this area below the ring of tape hasn't had any light hitting it and as you can see there we've got white comparatively white where there's been no light hitting it and it's gone dark and the rest of it that's what happens inside the pinhole camera it itches an image in a way using light onto the photographic paper now you don't want to sort of like leave it out for too long even scanning the image won't have a massive effect on the final negative although after I've done the negative I do put them into dark material don't develop them they'll just go black and you lose it don't fix it either you fix the actual picture the image will wash off but you end up with a undeveloped latent image the same thing fox talbot played about with his photos you didn't develop them you just let the sun build the image up in the same way as let's say getting a suntan so basically that will be in your pinhole camera here for three months six months whatever time you want you could do it for the little as a month if you want so photographic paper loaded up the next thing to do is to seal your camera more death by gap ago but you don't want people taking the lids off so we stick the lid on to the can one piece going right way round another piece overlapping it a bit where the water supposedly will flood out or noise and then the last bit going over the top should make it waterproof however because it's a pinhole camera you can actually install the camera upside down doesn't matter and then water won't get in through there next bit is the image stabilization device which goes onto the camera which you use basically to position the instruction sheet and the cable ties I get them to put this in here so they don't lose it and then just to sort of almost force them through guilt to actually make sure the camera gets installed couple of cable ties underneath and that's the final object they'll take home and pester their parents to sort of say I don't do this on homework I can pull it up for me please point them and that's the final camera trickiest bit tearing gaffer tape the reason it won't work are because people are will put them on their mantle pieces and not follow the instructions the main reason is people don't put them up of groups of 25 and 30 sometimes only two or three will put them up because they're worried they'll do it wrong that's why I basically make the responsibility that of the parents and then the kids gets all the glory and stuff we'll be able to see six months worth worth of the Sun moving across the sky if you want to make a less conspicuous camera something you can put out in the public domain you can make them fast more this one here's made out of the film pot is a little bit more complicated you make a hole in the plastic pot piece of aluminium cut from a beer can and a bit of a pinhole not quite as big as the other one and then you just put a bit the photographic paper in the same way as the other one there the shutter [Music] take the camera down okay it may be a bit wet due to condensation stuff in which case under a sort of darkish lighting just sort of like dry it out with a hairdryer until it gets dry you don't ask an anything that's wet okay so we in the head row down you're then again under darkish lighting but it doesn't have to be complete dark or anything we put it onto your flatbed scanner fairly quickly and then just simply scan directly file import blah blah blah don't preview the image just can directly then click scan I normally scan it at about 400 dpi 600 dpi in color even though it's a black-and-white image scan it in color because that pinky brown color that the paper becomes when you invert the image into a positive the invert of the color pinky Brown is blue and it gives the impression that the skies blue and stuff the image is scanned I take it out put it straight back into a camera make it light tight again just so the images as stable as it can be then you end up with a negative image in you've scanned in digitally image adjust invert and you end up with an inverted image and you can play around with the contrast image adjust brightness contrast sugar to taste do anything you want with it up to you of course with this process we're not developing they're not using chemicals which is brilliant for schools and stuff there's no worry about using sort of developers top bar fixer we're just simply scanning into a computer and you should be able to find flatbed scanners around the place at school to be able to use there's no chemicals involved just scan directly if you develop the image it go black you fix it it will just wash away so no developing no fixing scan the image straight in digital fire [Music] you [Music] you

Channel: JustinQuinnell

Views: 174,896

Rating: 4.9342103 out of 5

Keywords: pinhole, pinhole photography, photography, how to, educational, justin quinnell, bristol, mgl media, beercan

Id: wtZOWEB_wcI

Length: 13min 41sec (821 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 19 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/NathanielC]

That's a really good project, thanks for sharing OP!

[u/-wethegreenpeople-]

Two questions. This looks like a wonderful project and I'd love to do it at a summer camp I go to, would the picture be as impressive if we only let it sit for a week? Or would it not really be worth it?

2nd question: Have I lived my life with the wrong impression of what cynical means? Because this guy didn't seem cynical at all to me?

[u/harvus1]

Bet he's great fun when he's been in the ale

[u/officialchocolateman]

Man, I wanted to see the picture at the end more clearly.

[u/hatsune_aru]

Make sure you label this as a camera if you want to leave it outside. Someone thought it was a bomb and shit went down in Atlanta a while ago.

[u/HGpennypacker]

So when you get it all set up do you just remove the tape covering the pinhole? Is it as simple as that?

[u/Kpc2593]

Whatever you do, don't do this in Atlanta.

[u/cmdcharco]

yup, my pupils will be doing this for sure

[u/ThermosPotato]

I am definitely doing this!