# different kind of photo contest



## mysteryscribe (Apr 12, 2006)

Yeah it is a trick...  I have been making a kind of strange camera lately.  I need to know if anyone knows the name for it.  If there isn't one lets make up one.

Okay a pin hole camera had no glass, but a tiny aperture to make the image work.

A normal lens usually has a shutter and a movable aperture..

Even an old barrel lens usually had a moveable aperture.

What I have made recently was a camera with a glass lens and a fixed pinhole aperture with a rudimentary shutter.  In other words a shutter in most cases with bulb and instant.  Some even have a couple of settings.  Others are just a lens cap kind of thing.

I'm wondering is there a name for a camera with glass and a pin hole aperture, with or without a shutter of some kind.  If not somebody suggest what I can call the beast.  I have a 2x3 version and a 4x5 version and I am thinking I might do a 5x7 version.  So what is a good name if there isn't one already.

The first prize is a large public thank you in any venue that you choose.


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## JamesD (Apr 20, 2006)

I would think it's an ordinary "camera" with fixed (but very small!) aperture.  Since a Pinhole camera requires a pinhole as the only "focusing" or "light gathering" element, I don't guess it'd qualify as a true pinhole camera.

On the other hand... a pinhole is an aperture, just that as you make it bigger, you lose detail because, I guess, more angular degrees of vision are getting through, blurring stuff out.  (My technical description of the day).  And... Lenses are pieces of glass with curved surfaces to refract and sort out those angular degrees into an orderly image.

So, I guess you could say that any camera is a pinhole camera, just with a device to correct it's poor vision at larger hole sizes.

Plus, if you get a small enough portion of the center (or any other portion, really) of that curved glass surface, it'll appear to be a flat surface... just that as you get farther away from the center, it bends a straight beam of light more because of the angle between front and back surfaces.

So, yeah, all cameras are pinhole cameras, just some need spectacles (monacles? LOL).

Maybe you could call it the Mystery Machine?


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## mysteryscribe (Apr 20, 2006)

Yeah I ran through all that in my mind to. I think I have decided that in the future I will call it a primitive camera. Some of them have no shutters and pin hole apurtures so qualify as very early type cameras.

Some have rudimentary shutters but with pinhole apertures the bult time are the only ones of any real use. The old glass reacts differently I noticed. I Have camera, which at the time I called a super pinhole because it had glass, but no shutter. It has a wallensak two element lenst that is very detailed but most of the old glass isn.t it has that sharp but flat look of a pinhole camera. There is a difference with the glass attached but It isn't drastic if you stay with the old glass I think.

I am at this moment taking a break from finishing up on a kodak brownie folding pocket 120. Of course it wont do any of that ever again. It is now a paint can camera. a f235 pin hole aperture makes it a pinhole camera but it has a meniscus lens and a simple itb shutter. So I'm going to definitely label it primative type.


Thought for today: Real photographers do it in the dark


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