Pinhole Camera

This past July, I was wandering down in the basement and I absent mindedly turned off the lights before I made it to the stairs, and was thus forced to make my way in the darkness. I noticed a patch of light on the concrete floor and it made me think. Why was the patch of light rectangular?


I looked up and found that the hole in the ceiling (i.e. the floor of the main floor living room) was round (about 3/4" diameter - don't ask why we have holes in our main floor). I then realized the patch of light on the floor was an image of the living room skylight. The hole in the floor was acting as a pinhole camera!

Naturally, I broke out the digital camera, and after fooling around with the exposure settings for a while took some interesting images.

Here is what the skylight looks like (this pic was taken from the second floor balcony, so the perspective is a bit different)


I laid a white T-Shirt over the patch of light to give more uniform illumination.


Here is one of the later shots. I reduced the exposure time so that the camera would be able to capture what was visible through the skylight.


High Tech? ... Meet Low Tech.

Whee! Fun with science!!!

Don