It was used very much in Renaissance times. I understand there is/was a building in the Vatican with a small hole that would enable them to trace the sun and moon very accurately to time the various holidays.
The finest artists at that time also were trying to get a handle on perspective, and while we have less respect for “camera real”, they did not have cameras, and getting 3d on a 2d image was a great challenge.
Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away!
Sweet!
Amazing stuff. I’ve got slides from the 60’s and while the Kodachrome ones are still as colorful as the day they were taken, the Ektachrome slides are quite faded (bluish). Too bad they discontinued it.
OH MY GOOD GRIEF - THIS IS SO AMAZING 
Very nice camera and a great video. Pinholes are a lot of fun. Thanks for the writeup and build photos.
The math behind the diameter is fascinating. It has been a long time since I have done calculous so I wouldn’t have been able to derive that by myself. 
In the past I’ve used the calculators on the Mr Pinhole page. You can start with any part of the equation. Out of curiosity I used the value from the video (4x5" and 65mm) to see what Mr Pinhole came up with.
It was close but didn’t quite agree as the site recommended a .34mm pinhole.
Several years ago I 3D printed a lens plate for my 4x5 camera that had a removable pinhole shim and integral shutter. I was playing around with other designs and made a shim that had three pin holes in it.
It was a fun experiment and one that I need to get back to one of these days.
Making your own pinhole is pretty easy. You can pick up a set of precision drill bits cheap. Then by just spinning one between your fingers you can drill through the brass shim. If you use slight pressure it won’t dimple very much and then you can give it a couple of passes on the back side with some sand paper to remove the dimple. That’s how I did the three hole setup.
Talking about the ethereal look of a pinhole image this is one of my favorites:
It was taken on photo paper rather than a film negative. I set up the camera right before sunset and left it for 20 or 30 minutes while I ran around scouting other locations for the night. I just stuck the camera in the dirt and piled up a small mound to prop it up. The view was a total guess.
I love how it looks foggy. It was actually a clear evening. I don’t know what the bright spots that like like stars are caused by. When the paper negative was developed it looked pretty bad and quite faint. When it was scanned and inverted I loved the image.
It was made with this marvel of technology.
Please post more of your pinhole journey.
Wow, there’s so much here I don’t know where to begin! But most of all, thanks so much for sharing your experience and insight. It is truly astonishing what pinholes can do. Because we have control of the pinhole we can arrive at some unique images that no lens manufacturer can match. I too am interested in doing multiple pinhole in the near future. Very cool! There is so much we can play with, the possibilities are endless! I am intrigued by the picture of the plane. At first glance it seemed like a model. There is an unworldly character to its “air.” I guess that’s the ethereal quality of pinhole photography. What bird is that BTW? PV-2 Harpoon? I don’t know my planes like I used to. Those spots: I have two negatives that had similar spots and on close inspection I noticed they cast shadows! I am not sure what they were but they seemed to be on the negative itself and substantial enough to cast micro shadows. Sand, perhaps? Sand gets everywhere where I live. The appearance of your camera: the fact that you can get the images you have with a cardboard box makes it by definition, a marvel of technology! But in all seriousness, I guess what makes pinholes so much fun is that technology (in the sense that it implies modernity) is far, far less important than ingenuity. Anyway thanks so much for sharing. I’m working on a compact pinhole I hope to take on a trip soon. I don’t know if it will be done in time but if it does get done and I have time to do a write up, I’ll post. If not, I’ll be taking this camera on the trip and I’ll post new photos to this thread. Cheers!
I love this pinhole thread. A couple years ago I had the idea to make a digital pinhole camera using the cap for my DSLR. I drilled a larger hole in the cap and covered it with a homemade brass shim pinhole. It actually worked. (it was also very effective at showing every single bit of dust on my sensor). Now I want to try it again!
Thanks, I’m always worried I over share. 
I don’t want to hijack a thread but I like talking about projects and solutions. That is the biggest thing I miss about my gallery - talking to people about the art and the process.
You can even add small baffles between the pinholes to make it work more like a segmented lens. Kind of like an insect’s eye. I haven’t tried it yet but it would be pretty easy to make something on the GF. Here’s an example of such a camera. Instead of blending the images like mine did it gives you distinctly different images. I think it would be fun to adjust the height of the baffles to get distinct images that blur into the adjoining images.
I really don’t know anything about the plane. It was at Eagle Field in California. Eagle Field is an old training base that was bought privately in the 80s(?). The owner would use the runway to do drag races and air shows. He had a small museum setup in one building and a bunch of cars stored in the old hanger. He also built a clubhouse in there to get away from the wife. 
It was more than a man cave, it was huge.
I went out there for a night photography workshop hosted by Troy Paiva (Instgram). I wasn’t there for the workshop but for the access to Eagle Field. The workshop was great but I had already worked with Troy on another workshop. It was a great experience.
You can see the wires hanging down by the landing gear. The plane was mostly gutted and now serves as a photo op.
When you mentioned sand I thought that was a good possibility - but on second thought the sand would create black spots not white. I loaded the camera up in Vegas and drove to CA and back. I think it sat for a few weeks before I got a chance to develop it so who knows? I can rule out stars since it was a 20+ minute exposure.
I wish I had seen this post earlier. I’m heading to Colorado in about a week. It would have been fun to make a pinhole to take with me. I don’t think I’ll have the time to get something done before then. Maybe I should break out my 120 year old Rochester Optical King camera.
Have a great trip and I hope you get a lot of pictures.
Looking forward to it.
Since you have a fixed focal length in that case (pinhole to sensor distance) you could use the Mr Pinhole calculators to calculate the best size hole. Or you can use the math in the video that @hide posted.
Another thing you can try if you haven’t already is to use something like a 50mm lens and make a pinhole style cover for it. Then you can cut a small shape instead of a pinhole. Hearts are used a lot. In this case you are still using the 50mm lens to focus but the shape changes the bokeh. Out of focus points of light will become hearts, or whatever you cut into the cover.
You can use black cardstock for the cutouts. These are simple to create on the Glowforge.
q.v.:
The long exposure times would limit the range of subjects but, I always thought it would be fun to shoot pinhole stereo pairs.
Yes, thank you for sharing the Mr. Pinhole link. I thought that would be helpful.
As far as shaped apertures. I have a Lensbaby set up with a bunch on magnetic disks. It also has a few blanks. I wonder if laser would cut…
Here is one more interesting thing I came across while looking for the multiple pinhole example:
I can still see all the numbers, but I am pretty sure I am suppose to.
In the 70’s I was doing electrical tool and die for aircraft in Kansas and I came across a study to find out why all the old pilots were blue eyed.
Answer was right in front of them. The aviation testing has a color aspect and further research showed blue eyes are immune to color degradation that all other eye color males get by age 30 and onward. So blue eyes for the win.
Regardless, the wife still asks me if I am going to wear this with that, so it isn’t about color at all, right?
Why were they of a group? Because that was who they hired. 
Color blindness is a common genetic “misprint” not related to eye color. If anything. darker eye color reduces scattered light getting through providing more protection from UV damage and glare,
Those with darker colored eyes experience less visual discomfort in bright, sunny conditions. Also, darker irises reflect less light within the eye, reducing susceptibility to glare and improving contrast discernment—so people with darker eyes may have better vision in high-glare situations, such as driving at night. Source
What does happen to most folk is damage to the cornea (in front of the iris) by infrared and UV that yellows the clear cornea (as well as physical damage like sand) that they can clear up by surgery. I had enough physical damage on my right eye that glasses could not correct so I had surgery there, So now I can see the difference that the untreated eye sees much more yellow but it did not have the physical damage.
Weirdly my brain has made much adjustment so it is hard to even notice now.
That phrase must be in the “Wife Manual.”
I am not going to wear google out trying to prove or disprove a life experience from something I related to 50 years ago, but…
Even in the 70’s the researchers doing studies were fairly smart and thorough. Further causation is the fact that I am now over 70 and my blue eyes still see all colors.
Regardless, if you want to refute what I stated, have at it.
Not about your experience. But my biology is better than my electronics, and my experience would have seen no yellow until I experienced not having it, and even now the brain has adjusted quite a lot. 
Hmmm… last year I started a small company that creates VR content. It would be a very cool analog tie-in to have stereo pinholes photos in the office along with those old wooden viewing glasses (there’s a great scene in “Blue Lagoon” where the castaway kids use one)! I think you may have just ignited something in me… 
