As you probably know, these days, there are all kinds of cameras designed for different purposes. From digital and photo cameras to hidden or tiny spy cameras. There’s one more type of cameras that has gained popularity over the long years. It is called – a pinhole camera.

What is a Pinhole Camera?

A pinhole cam is a simple camera without lens. It’s a small box or can with a tiny (usually 0.5mm or smaller) hole inside one end and a piece of photographic paper in the other. The image is build by light passing through the hole. Although in the early days, pinhole cams did not have very clear image quality, these days there are pinhole cameras come with micro lens and provide very good image quality.

The first pinhole camera was built in the 19th century. It gained some popularity and that time. Although cameras have advanced in size and quality, the principles still remain the same.

Therefore, nowadays there are many enthusiasts who still prefer to build a pinhole camera themselves. This might be fun for amateurish purposes, however, for more serious tasks such as secret surveillance, an already built pinhole cam is much better choice.

How to Build a Pinhole Camera?

If you still prefer to build a camera yourself, then here are the basic steps you should look at. First, you’ll need a cardboard with a tape hinge , which can be used as a shutter. Second, you’ll need to make a pinhole. Simply take a needle (small in diameter, about 0.5mm) and punch through a piece of tinfoil. Then tape that piece to the inside of the box through a larger hole.

If you’d like to change the angle of the view, you might want to create a moving box. You can simply take a sliding film holder so that the distance between the film and the pinhole can be changed.

If you’ll move a film closer to the pinhole, you’ll get a wider angle of view, but shorter exposure time. Moving a film further from the pinhole will result in longer exposure time, but the angle of view will be narrow.

More Serious Use of Pinhole Cameras

Actually, pinhole cameras may be used not only for taking photographs. They may be used for video recording too. However, making such pinhole video camera yourself would be very difficult if you don’t know the technical side involved.

However, you may order small pinhole cameras for surveillance at very reasonable prices these days. You may order it online for less that $100 as a matter of fact.

Such pinhole cameras can be used to track nannies or your spouse for instance. You never know, what these people are doing in your house. If you trust them, then you (probably) have nothing to worry about. But if you’re suspicious, then there’s nothing better than buying a wireless pinhole camera and putting it inside some fluffy bunny or behind some books on a book shelve.