How many megapixels is your bathroom?!
Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 9:07 pm
So my second bathroom has recently turned into a darkroom. Maybe a dated process but a satisfying one all the same. 
So during blacking out the windows, door cracks, floor gaps the other night ready for fiddling with Super 8 and chemicals in the dark (I think some modern films you don't even need darkness to develop anymore, let alone a red light - Super 8 needs total darkness)... where was I... blacking out - then there was a small hole in the bin bag over the window.
Cue recreating an eyeball/camera obscura in your house. Don't ask me quite how it works because I don't think I understand well enough to even explain.
So then shut the doors, turn all lights off, sit in the darkness and wait. Takes a good few minutes for your eyes to adjust, but slowly you begin to see what's outside the window projected on the wall, upside down, just from the most miniscule bit of light coming through the hole. With your eye you can't see it in any great detail, just a very faint and vague silhouette.
For the camera/photo nerds: went and got the digital, set to 6400 ISO and left the shutter open for just over 1.5 minutes.
For everyone else, this means that basically over time the sensor in the camera picks up all the light entering the lens and records it for the entire time the button is down. (I think)
The resulting image:
Not exactly the most fascinating picture, just the church and chimneys I can see out the back, but the whole time I was sitting there with the shutter open I couldn't even see the camera I was holding.
Cool stuff IMO, essentially using a camera inside a camera.
Did the same process with my film camera at 1600 ISO for 8 minutes, will see how that turns out in the future...
So during blacking out the windows, door cracks, floor gaps the other night ready for fiddling with Super 8 and chemicals in the dark (I think some modern films you don't even need darkness to develop anymore, let alone a red light - Super 8 needs total darkness)... where was I... blacking out - then there was a small hole in the bin bag over the window.
Cue recreating an eyeball/camera obscura in your house. Don't ask me quite how it works because I don't think I understand well enough to even explain.
So then shut the doors, turn all lights off, sit in the darkness and wait. Takes a good few minutes for your eyes to adjust, but slowly you begin to see what's outside the window projected on the wall, upside down, just from the most miniscule bit of light coming through the hole. With your eye you can't see it in any great detail, just a very faint and vague silhouette.
For the camera/photo nerds: went and got the digital, set to 6400 ISO and left the shutter open for just over 1.5 minutes.
For everyone else, this means that basically over time the sensor in the camera picks up all the light entering the lens and records it for the entire time the button is down. (I think)
The resulting image:
Not exactly the most fascinating picture, just the church and chimneys I can see out the back, but the whole time I was sitting there with the shutter open I couldn't even see the camera I was holding.
Cool stuff IMO, essentially using a camera inside a camera.Did the same process with my film camera at 1600 ISO for 8 minutes, will see how that turns out in the future...
)