Project 5 - Pinhole Camera

by Andrew Tan

15-463: Computational Photography

Project Details

The goal of this assignment was to build a pinhole camera using a shoebox and a digital camera

Approach

Followed the instructions here. I poked holes in card stock of sizes: 0.1mm, 1mm and 5mm. Since the card stock I used was letting some light through, I made a layer of duct tape first and then poked the holes. And on the inside, I used sharpie to color it black so it wouldn't reflect too much light inside the box.

Results

Result 1

below are the results of the 0.1mm, 1mm and 5mm pinhole sizes. Although the best color comes from the 5mm pinhole size, the 1mm size is sharper as you can see from looking at the outline of building in the distance. However, because Pittsburgh is always so cloudy and my camera maxes out at 15s exposure and can't get enough light, I think the 5mm looks better.

Result 2

below are the results of the 0.1mm, 1mm and 5mm pinhole sizes. The best looking picture in this case again is the 5mm picture

Extra Images

additional results with a 5mm pinhole size. Here, 5mm pinhole size is necessary for indoor shots since the smaller pinhole sizes don't let in enough light for my camera to register anything except direct light sources.