Pinhole Camera

A home-made large format camera.

The pinhole camera

I made a pinhole camera from a mooncake tin. Other containers could also work. But mooncake tins and cookie tins are extra good because their lids attach with a smooth, light-tight, metal-to-metal fit.

My pinhole camera consists of:

Camera body: A mooncake tin. I drilled a 1.5 cm hole, then spray-painted the inside flat black.
Camera back: The lid of the mooncake tin, with the same flat black treatment as the ‘body’. The metal-to-metal contact between the body and back were masked off (not painted).
‘Lens’: Actually there’s no lens, just a pinhole made with a sewing needle in a piece of household aluminum foil. It is taped in place over the 1.5 cm hole in the body.
Shutter: A cardboard flap attached with tape. There is no need for a timed shutter because exposures are several minutes or even longer.

Making the picture

In a film changing bag, I taped a 4x5 sheet of Arista 400 Edu film onto the inside of the lid, and attached the lid. I set up the shot by propping up the camera on a chair, made the exposure (several minutes), developed the film, and made a print:

**Dieffenbachia houseplant.** Negative: Mooncake tin pinhole camera, 4x5 Arista Edu 400 film, 2024. Print: Platinum-palladium from original camera negative, 2025.

Discussion

I’m a beginner at pinhole photography. To make more predictable and refined photographs, the next step would be to calculate the pinhole diameter for the focal length (that is, the depth of the box, 6cm). Making the edges of the hole smoother would also help.

I have a cookie tin that is deeper, for a longer focal length. I plan to try that as a next step.

Further reading

For this project, I searched the topic on the web and skimmed through several YouTube videos. I was also inspired by this book:

Morell, A. 2004. Camera Obscura. New York: Bullfinch Press.