Home Made Pinhole Camera
Toronto. Some of the earliest cameras were pinhole cameras. The mechanics magazines of the 1950s periodically gave plans for making your own pinhole camera. The challenge was the creation of a pinhole the right diameter and perfectly round.
Often the magazine articles suggested a suitable darning needle and a sturdy foil. The hole was carefully centred on one side of the light tight container and the sensitive medium – film or photographic paper – was placed across from it in the container.
The choice of container size and, shape, plus the sensitive material size determined whether the camera image was a panorama, normal, wide angle, telephoto, etc. At one time I even had a small book on pinhole cameras called The Hole Thing. Today, as my friend George Dunbar recently mentioned, we have an annual pinhole camera day each April. The results of the pinhole event are posted on line to celebrate the world pinhole day. This year, the day was April 26th and the results are now posted. Toronto had two images, one by Larry Reid and a second by Freddy Lum.
