The Beauty of the Pinhole Camera

Pinhole Camera (AS 2019)

In this unit of my STEAM course, Light, Sound, and Time, we've been studying light and its wonders relating to mathematics and different science principles. The first experiment that we did in class was the Hershey Bar experiment, where you test the changing temperatures of a Hershey Bar while a lamp is placed above it. We wrote down the initial temperature of the piece of chocolate and then the changing temperature. This revealed what light bulb produced the most heat. For a Field Experience, we visited the Latin School in Chicago and visited their dark room. We created a pinhole camera and related it to the ideas of reflection vs. refraction, light waves and particles, and the science behind the eye and its form. Through this class, we also connected the camera to the eye because the camera acts as an eye. The eye can take in light and focus it. A camera does the same with its lens and focal point. The pinhole camera was made out of an oatmeal box. I poked a small piece of aluminum with a pin and made a tiny hole. I then painted the inside of the box black so it could absorb the light coming in. Lastly, I created a shutter on the lens so I could lift it up when light's ready to go inside the box and create the image. My results were successful!

My Pinhole Camera image: An astronaut with my paining (AS 2019)

Calculations: I left the shutter open for 3 1/2 minutes to capture the photo.

Pinhole Calculations (AS 2019)

The first thing I did was measure the height of the object, width, and the height of the pinhole. 

H1= 7.125 in.

W= 4 in. 

H2= 3 in.

I then found the total distance from the paper to the object. By doing that I solved the proportion 3x/3= 28.5/3. I got that by cross multiplying 7.125 in to 4 in and multiplying 3 in by the missing distance (x). The answer I got was 9.5 in. Next, I found the minimum distance between the the object and the camera to capture the entire image. I found that by subtracting the total distance (9.5 in) by the width (4 in) which resulted in 5.5 in. After that I used the Pythagorean Theorem to find the hypotenuse inside the camera as well as the triangle's entire hypotenuse. I started with doing 4^2 + 3^2 and got 25. The final answer for the inside hypotenuse is 5 because the square root of 25 is 5. Then I did 9.5^2 + 7.125^2, and got 11.875 which is the triangle's ENTIRE hypotenuse while 6.875 (sq. root of 11.875 in. ) is the section outside of the camera. Lastly, I used the inverse Tangent, Tan ^ -1 (3/4) to find the angle inside the triangle. As a result, my answer was 36.87 degrees. In order to get the complementary angle, I subtracted 90 degrees by the angle inside and got 53.13 degrees as my answer.

           

I feel so grateful to have received. I always wanted to go to a dark room for photography and after taking my pinhole photography, I got the chance to learn how to process the photo. I also learned so much about light and its wonders. This unit opened my eyes about cameras and how they're very similar to the human eye. I had no idea that they were alike in any way. I also enjoyed doing calculations for this project and breaking everything down. This project made me want to create my own camera at home and experiment with photography and how it relates directly to light. I started this project off thinking that the pinhole camera illustrated refraction and reflection. I found out I was wrong, which led me to a new discovery about light. By far, this was my favorite Action Project!