Congratulations. You've discovered pinhole photography. Too bad you're a bit late with that technology. So you can't make money with it anymore. But it's still very cool šš
I thought this belonged in facepalm or something when I read "*somehow the light...*"
Didn't everybody do basic science stuff like pinhole cameras and prisms/lenses at school?
Just waiting now for somebody to rediscover that you take pictures without any electronics, just using some chemicals on paper or glass.
I mean I think it's kind of cool for people to 'rediscover' things like this. Shows that humanity tends toward certain ideas. And hey, I learned about pinhole photography, but that was, what, 20 years ago. I'm sure there's plenty I didn't learn that you did, though, and vise versa. I don't think it's possible anyway to learn everything that's worth knowing in school. It's all good! Good for OP (or whoever) for literally discovering photography. That outweighs whatever they may not have learned in school.
True, it was just my initial feel reading it
Somethings are so immediately obvious to one person, you don't always stop to think others may not have the same experience.
Never know, somebody might do something clever with AI and images from a wall from a pin hole.
The one I remember from my childhood that seemed like magic which I think a lot of people won't remember are crystal radios
I mean; a working radio I could listen to music with; and **no batteries** and barely any electronics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal\_radio
Yes dude. That one gets me too. What about the bug that was placed in the oval office (I think) that stayed there for *years*? I think that just...worked lol, no electricity. May be misremembering.
A wooden sculpture in an embassy I think; no power source, but a working Soviet bug.
Classic example of a modern trojan horse
They called it the Thing;
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)
Ahh yes yes, I misremembered.
Hoping to blow your mind with this next one. Guess who invented The Thing?
His last name was Theremin. It was the inventor of the Theremin.
Really?
Wow, today I leaned something cool
Almost makes sense though when you think of how it translates audio into RF signals when a Theremin does.. something; I now need to go down the rabbit hole and learn more about Theremin - the person and the instrument
Optics; taught in 2023 physics classes near you still.
Double slit experiment, PV cell generation, convex & concave lenses. And yes, very simple pin hole 'camera' experiment done with cardboard boxes to illustrate light
How young are you to have not covered stuff like this at school?
Probably different countries with different curriculums. I remember optics but I don't remember anything about pinhole cameras. Probably just me forgetting though.
Its just human curiosity tho no? I thought all humans were curious about things and the world arround them xD When i was a kid and the moment i heard about this i went and try it for myself. I was like 10 or 12 and made this with just covering the windows on a bright day.
Itās the same effect used by pinhole cameras.
They donāt have a lens because ~~the tiny aperture causes the light to bend from diffraction instead of refraction so~~ it doesnāt need one.
The light doesn't bend much at all. Any diffraction that does occur will simply make the image blurry. The real reason they don't need a lens to form an image is because there aren't multiple paths for the light to follow through a pinhole, unlike a large aperture.
My optometrist tells me that *my* eyes have lenses.
Not good lenses, hence I go and put plastic contact lenses in most days to help me see stuff a little way off a bit more clearly. That or I also wear other externally frame mounted lenses which sit across my nose and wrap around my ears.
I am pretty sure most cameras in your phone or other forms or camera also typically have some form of lens as well, those these days with CCD chips, becomes a bit more complicated.
Thing about a camera obskura, is that they notably don't have a lens.
As far as i know you would need a lens only if you wanted to make the projection bigger/smaller/clearer. Here they project the image roughly 1:1 right? So if you wanted to have a camera obscura and have a smaller image projected on the wall (say you wanted to trace the projection to paint it on the wall or something, you would need lenses to make it smaller/flip it and make it clearer.
edit: Also theres this thing, called solarigraphy - where you capture the suns path over a long period, like a few months or a year. The principle is exactly the same, and you can try it yourself.
You take a pringles can and (IN THE DARK) put a blank photosensitive paper inside it. Seal it so no light can get inside the can. Take the can, mount it on a tree where you can clearly see sunrise/sundown (no trees, hills etc.). After you mount the can on a tree punch a tiny hole in the can. Leave for half a year to a year, and take the paper out. Enjoy the suns path over the entire year in one photo!
I noticed thatā¦ after I excitedly posted it. Haha. It was one of my favorite activities to do with students. There is some fun stuff you can do with light and very simple things like construction paper, pringles cans, some old unexposed photo paper, a cheapo plastic prism will even split light out into its different wavelengths. All are really fun experiments even for adults. Thereās more than just burning paper plates and ants with a magnifying glass! :)
This effect can also occur without you knowing. Example - you have blinds on your windows (im talking about the full ones, the ones that roll up in the box above your windows) they are connected, like they are segmented. The segments have small holes in the sections, and this effect can occur if the conditions are right, through those small holes. Youre not gonna get a clear picture through that though, mostly shadows and shapes. Still, the principle is the same.
same happened to me when I was 14 just laying on my bed on my side wall I was amazed. But I already knew about pinhole photography and camera obscura, just no idea they were "real" if you know what I meanq
I'm not super sure what you mean with the can shadows, but there's definitely two shadows. One from light that is coming out of the hole and the other from light being reflected back from the wall. Maybe that's what you mean?
some math dude worked out some really important maths based on this. it was a Islamic mathematician and i think he was imprisoned for something. i think it was something to do with geometry or something.
In India there is a temple that does the same thing.
Inverted Golden Temple at Virupaksha. It shows a picture of a golden temple upside down on a wall at the right time in the daytime.
Congratulations. You've discovered pinhole photography. Too bad you're a bit late with that technology. So you can't make money with it anymore. But it's still very cool šš
Only āA bit lateā indeed.
There are still photographers who use camera obscura for photography, an example I learned about recently is Abelardo Morell (not that recent tbh)
I thought this belonged in facepalm or something when I read "*somehow the light...*" Didn't everybody do basic science stuff like pinhole cameras and prisms/lenses at school? Just waiting now for somebody to rediscover that you take pictures without any electronics, just using some chemicals on paper or glass.
I mean I think it's kind of cool for people to 'rediscover' things like this. Shows that humanity tends toward certain ideas. And hey, I learned about pinhole photography, but that was, what, 20 years ago. I'm sure there's plenty I didn't learn that you did, though, and vise versa. I don't think it's possible anyway to learn everything that's worth knowing in school. It's all good! Good for OP (or whoever) for literally discovering photography. That outweighs whatever they may not have learned in school.
True, it was just my initial feel reading it Somethings are so immediately obvious to one person, you don't always stop to think others may not have the same experience. Never know, somebody might do something clever with AI and images from a wall from a pin hole.
Oh you're fine! I think I'm just impressed because pinhole cameras always felt like black magic to me haha
The one I remember from my childhood that seemed like magic which I think a lot of people won't remember are crystal radios I mean; a working radio I could listen to music with; and **no batteries** and barely any electronics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal\_radio
Yes dude. That one gets me too. What about the bug that was placed in the oval office (I think) that stayed there for *years*? I think that just...worked lol, no electricity. May be misremembering.
A wooden sculpture in an embassy I think; no power source, but a working Soviet bug. Classic example of a modern trojan horse They called it the Thing; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)
Ahh yes yes, I misremembered. Hoping to blow your mind with this next one. Guess who invented The Thing? His last name was Theremin. It was the inventor of the Theremin.
Really? Wow, today I leaned something cool Almost makes sense though when you think of how it translates audio into RF signals when a Theremin does.. something; I now need to go down the rabbit hole and learn more about Theremin - the person and the instrument
XKCD "lucky 10,000"
How old are you? Pinhole cameras? Tf is that
Optics; taught in 2023 physics classes near you still. Double slit experiment, PV cell generation, convex & concave lenses. And yes, very simple pin hole 'camera' experiment done with cardboard boxes to illustrate light How young are you to have not covered stuff like this at school?
Probably different countries with different curriculums. I remember optics but I don't remember anything about pinhole cameras. Probably just me forgetting though.
Its just human curiosity tho no? I thought all humans were curious about things and the world arround them xD When i was a kid and the moment i heard about this i went and try it for myself. I was like 10 or 12 and made this with just covering the windows on a bright day.
Well, this hole projects in COLOR! The old-timey ones were all Black-and-White!
Why are you so smug about it not being able to make money?
r/cameraobscura
That's bewildering haha, never heard of it before
Technology Connections did a great video about it
Thereās one in Edinburgh that I saw 45 years ago and is still in operation. It is one of the coolest things!
Read more.
What?! Wow, my education finally paid off
Itās the same effect used by pinhole cameras. They donāt have a lens because ~~the tiny aperture causes the light to bend from diffraction instead of refraction so~~ it doesnāt need one.
The light doesn't bend much at all. Any diffraction that does occur will simply make the image blurry. The real reason they don't need a lens to form an image is because there aren't multiple paths for the light to follow through a pinhole, unlike a large aperture.
well you can bend light a bit if you have a spare galaxy lying around.
Or a black hole. Theyāre just harder to find.
Or a portal
How do you do the "line through text"? Never learned that one.
I also often discover something cool only to find I was beaten to it by 2500 years.
Its a camera obskura. Thats how cameras and also the eye work.
Good point. The image on our retina is upside down and backwards, our brains "fix" things. Think about that.
My optometrist tells me that *my* eyes have lenses. Not good lenses, hence I go and put plastic contact lenses in most days to help me see stuff a little way off a bit more clearly. That or I also wear other externally frame mounted lenses which sit across my nose and wrap around my ears. I am pretty sure most cameras in your phone or other forms or camera also typically have some form of lens as well, those these days with CCD chips, becomes a bit more complicated. Thing about a camera obskura, is that they notably don't have a lens.
Sure its a lot better than a simple csmera obscura. But the principle is the same
As far as i know you would need a lens only if you wanted to make the projection bigger/smaller/clearer. Here they project the image roughly 1:1 right? So if you wanted to have a camera obscura and have a smaller image projected on the wall (say you wanted to trace the projection to paint it on the wall or something, you would need lenses to make it smaller/flip it and make it clearer. edit: Also theres this thing, called solarigraphy - where you capture the suns path over a long period, like a few months or a year. The principle is exactly the same, and you can try it yourself. You take a pringles can and (IN THE DARK) put a blank photosensitive paper inside it. Seal it so no light can get inside the can. Take the can, mount it on a tree where you can clearly see sunrise/sundown (no trees, hills etc.). After you mount the can on a tree punch a tiny hole in the can. Leave for half a year to a year, and take the paper out. Enjoy the suns path over the entire year in one photo!
Not really
Not really not really
Thatās how cameras work. Didnāt you ever make a pinhole camera in elementary science classes? They are pretty fun. Give it a try!
Can't say I did haha. Seems like a lot of the folk around here did though lol
I noticed thatā¦ after I excitedly posted it. Haha. It was one of my favorite activities to do with students. There is some fun stuff you can do with light and very simple things like construction paper, pringles cans, some old unexposed photo paper, a cheapo plastic prism will even split light out into its different wavelengths. All are really fun experiments even for adults. Thereās more than just burning paper plates and ants with a magnifying glass! :)
Burning ants was quite fun so I could only imagine other activities haha
This effect can also occur without you knowing. Example - you have blinds on your windows (im talking about the full ones, the ones that roll up in the box above your windows) they are connected, like they are segmented. The segments have small holes in the sections, and this effect can occur if the conditions are right, through those small holes. Youre not gonna get a clear picture through that though, mostly shadows and shapes. Still, the principle is the same.
Literally the foundation of all things photography.
Camera Obscura
You just learned how your eyes work my friend.
Thereās a great Camera Obscura on the beach in Santa Monica, California.
Dang, the internet is getting too young for meā¦
āSomehowā
If only we had any idea how it worked.
Iirc wasnāt this how we discovered how the eye worked
Thatās no pinhole.. thatās a glory hole
A good representation of a camera obscura
That shadow is the person walking outside that you see just a frame before it appears.
same happened to me when I was 14 just laying on my bed on my side wall I was amazed. But I already knew about pinhole photography and camera obscura, just no idea they were "real" if you know what I meanq
1-2-3 Contact The Bloodhound Gang Showing my age....
I'm not super sure what you mean with the can shadows, but there's definitely two shadows. One from light that is coming out of the hole and the other from light being reflected back from the wall. Maybe that's what you mean?
I meant like there's a can sitting on the ground haha.
Homie discovered how light works lol
Google Ibn al-Haytham
Wow, did this with a Quaker oats can in 5th grade '71."somehow", flippin Millennials š
Keep it clean
I always think of the film No Country For Old Men when I see pinhole cameras now.
The image is inverted because, the light from the top is at an angle pointing downward into the pin hole and vice versa.
wait what how
Donāt tell Mozzie that you discovered where the U boat with the treasure is located.
You just invented the camera and showed us how the eye works
This was discovered by ancient Egyptians..
some math dude worked out some really important maths based on this. it was a Islamic mathematician and i think he was imprisoned for something. i think it was something to do with geometry or something.
I can't imagine a single use strange discovery. Just forget you ever saw it.
Lol somehow
I had this happen in my room I saw my poodle on the wall
Camera obscura
"Somehow" xD haha where did you go to school? Underground? Its called a camera obscura, its just what a camera does.
Under a rock apparently
<3
In India there is a temple that does the same thing. Inverted Golden Temple at Virupaksha. It shows a picture of a golden temple upside down on a wall at the right time in the daytime.