Where in the World is the Tea Tin Pinhole Camera??

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About Where in the World is the Tea Tin Pinhole Camera??

One homemade pinhole camera travels the world, photographing local scenes by it's host. The host posts his or her photo(s), and sends the camera to the next host.

*One World* *One Camera* *Many Images by Folks around the world!*



This is a pinhole camera that uses photographic paper negatives, which are then developed in a chemical darkroom process. (or, if a solargraph, scan the paper negative digitally, and post process) After developing, the negatives (or positives) can be scanned to make a digital copy for uploading to the group. Feel free to post process in the darkroom or digitally, if you like.

Please make and post as many images as you like. Regular pinhole images or solargraphs are great ways to photograph your world. In order to keep the camera moving fast enough to keep up the group's interest, please limit your visit with the tea tin cam to one month, and then pass it along to the next host. (info provided via Flickr mail)

Please give a little information about the location of your images, so that everyone can see where in the world the tea tin cam is spending time.

Camera specs:
pinhole diameter: .013 in / .33mm
focal length: 2.5 in / 6.4cm

negative size: 4.5 in / 11.4cm high, up to 7 in / 17.7cm wide. (a shorter width would be less tricky fitting into the cam- 7 inches / 18cm can cover the pinhole, if not lined up just right)

aperture: f.183

Hopefully Helpful hints about this particular camera:

This camera was given to me several years ago, as a tin holding a winter blend of loose black tea, dried berries and citrus rind. It is a metal cylindrical tin (I think made of aluminum) with a metal inset lid.

The lid is not light tight by itself, and the camera is beginning it's journey with a strip of gaffer's tape to seal the gap between lid and top of camera. Many dark adhesive tapes would work well, I would guess.

I have been using paper negatives that are 7 in / 17.7cm wide, but that's as wide as it can be, before the paper would wrap back on itself and cover the pinhole. There is a toothpick taped to the inside of the camera above the pinhole to help guide the paper inside the camera, in such a way that the photographer is certain the pinhole is not accidentally covered by the paper. If you can see or feel the toothpick between the edges of the paper, then you can be certain the pinhole is not blocked. If you don't want to bother with this, you can make your negatives less wide, and it won't be so tricky to load the camera.

When I use my hand-held light meter, I assume a paper negative ISO speed of about 6.

I use the following formula for calculating exposure time: (f.camera aperture/f.22)² which works out for this camera to be 69 times whatever exposure I meter the conditions at f.22. When there is very bright sun, however, this measurement tends to overexpose the negatives very much.

Lately though I have had reliable exposure results with this guide: about 20-30 seconds for sunny conditions, 45 seconds for partly cloudy to bright cloudy conditions, and about one minute for cloudy weather.