The Pinhole: Easiest Camera Ever!
Pinhole cameras were as minimalistic as the world of photography ever got. All you need is a small box that is totally light-proof with one tiny hole on the front and a piece of light sensitive something, whether it be paper or film, stuck inside the box opposite of the hole and then you are ready to take a picture!
You need to put the light-sensitive something in the camera while you are in a dark room and not outside, otherwise you paper or film will be ruined before you've even started! There also needs to be a piece of tape or paper covering the pinhole until you are ready to expose the film. A pinhole camera can't really be focused on a specific object. The focus of the image is totally dependent on your distance away from the object and the size of the box you are using. The farther your paper or film is away from the actual pinhole, the fuzzier the picture is going to be.
The pinhole camera did not start out as a picture-taking device. Its ancestor, the camera obscura, was used for catching an image and projecting and enlarging it. Alhazen, a great figure in the optics world around 1000 A.D used the pinhole camera and the camera obscura and was able to explain why the image showed up upside-down. The first casual reference to optic laws were made by Aristotle in 330 B.C. He questioned why the sun could make a circular image when it shined through a square hole. These optic laws allowed the design of the pinhole camera to be possible.
You need to put the light-sensitive something in the camera while you are in a dark room and not outside, otherwise you paper or film will be ruined before you've even started! There also needs to be a piece of tape or paper covering the pinhole until you are ready to expose the film. A pinhole camera can't really be focused on a specific object. The focus of the image is totally dependent on your distance away from the object and the size of the box you are using. The farther your paper or film is away from the actual pinhole, the fuzzier the picture is going to be.
The pinhole camera did not start out as a picture-taking device. Its ancestor, the camera obscura, was used for catching an image and projecting and enlarging it. Alhazen, a great figure in the optics world around 1000 A.D used the pinhole camera and the camera obscura and was able to explain why the image showed up upside-down. The first casual reference to optic laws were made by Aristotle in 330 B.C. He questioned why the sun could make a circular image when it shined through a square hole. These optic laws allowed the design of the pinhole camera to be possible.