To get started in pinhole photography, choose photo paper rather than film, a ready-made camera rather than a homemade box and a still subject in broad daylight, then work through preparing the baths, loading the paper, the exposure and developing.
Getting started in pinhole photography takes only a few steps, but the order in which you tackle them changes everything, and it is often there, over the sequence to follow rather than the technique, that beginners hesitate. Photography without a lens is not difficult at all, provided you keep things simple at the start and leave the tricky questions for later.
The principle fits in one sentence: light enters a light-tight box through a tiny hole and leaves an inverted, still invisible image at the back, on the photo paper, which developing then brings out. If the process itself still seems unclear, our guide sets out the basics of pinhole photography, from the hole that replaces the lens to the print.
Once you have these basics, the next step is to put them into practice, one stage at a time, towards a first session that works.
Where to start in pinhole photography
The first decision is strategic: it means clearing away everything that could make a first attempt fail. Three choices make learning simpler and are worth making from the outset.
First, choose photo paper rather than film. Black and white paper is handled under red light, which lets you see what you are doing, whereas film requires total darkness and a dexterity you do not have at the start.
Next, go for a ready-made camera rather than a homemade box for your very first image. DIY remains a great adventure, but it adds making the hole to the variables you have to master, a clean hole 0.2 to 0.8 mm in diameter depending on the depth of the box, and it is better to isolate one difficulty at a time.
To weigh an all-in-one kit against a homemade box or a camera on its own, the pinhole camera kit comparison sets out the criteria according to your profile.
To practise pinhole photography with children, aim for a still subject in broad daylight. A building front, a tree or a still life on a windowsill will forgive the long exposure, whereas a living subject moves and blurs the image.
The order of steps for a first session
A pinhole session always follows the same logic, and knowing it in advance stops you getting lost. The sequence comes down to five stages.
- Prepare the developing solutions and set up the dark corner, before you even take out the camera.
- Load the paper into the box, away from the light.
- Set the camera firmly in front of the subject, then open the shutter for the exposure.
- Close it, go back to the dark corner and develop the sheet in the baths.
- Rinse, dry, then read the image to adjust the next exposure.
Preparation comes before taking the picture, because once the paper has been exposed you need to be able to develop it straight away, or the latent image may deteriorate. The dark corner is nothing like a lab; a windowless bathroom is enough to set up a darkroom.
Getting your first pinhole photo right
The first exposure is guesswork, and that is normal, because no camera will give you the right duration in advance. The idea is to start from a rough order of magnitude and then correct it, without trying to get it right first time.
In full sun on paper, think in seconds; under an overcast sky, in tens of seconds; near a window, in minutes. For a more precise calculation, divide the distance between the hole and the paper by the diameter of the hole to get the f-number of the pinhole, then multiply the reference time at f/16 by the square of the ratio between this f-number and 16.
These ranges are only a starting point for estimating the exposure time, which you then refine.
Pitfalls to avoid when you are starting out
In workshops, the first sheets almost always fail for the same reasons, and knowing them in advance saves you several sessions. Three pitfalls keep coming up.
- Preparing the developer badly. Dilute the concentrated liquid developer according to the instructions, with water at the right temperature, just before you begin.
- Moving the camera during the exposure. Over several seconds or minutes, the slightest shake smears the image. Set the box on a stable support and open the shutter with a decisive movement.
- Letting light in other than through the hole. A leak through a badly sealed edge, or paper handled under unsafe light, fogs the sheet with a uniform grey.
When an image fails despite everything, it tells you something precise about what went wrong. For the full diagnosis, whether the image is too light, too dark or fogged, see failed pinhole photos.
A simpler route to a first image
Everything above assumes you gather the paper, the chemicals and what you need to develop them, and it is this logistics, more than the act of taking the photograph, that discourages people at the start.
To get to your first image without stumbling over the chemistry or the hole, the Sténoflex brings everything together in a single box: the pinhole dark chamber with its shutter, ten sheets of black and white photo paper, the developer and fixer as concentrated liquids in two bottles of 15 ml each, the red filter, the exposure table and the instructions, making ten photographs for a complete first series.
Designed in France in 2009 as an introduction to the process, it is the tool we use in workshops to get a first image within a single session.
Once you feel at ease, nothing stops you going back to DIY and making your own box, blackened inside, with a needle hole pricked in a square of aluminium and a flap of black tape as a shutter. For anyone who wants to push the format to the extreme, the matchbox pinhole camera offers a miniature version using 35 mm film.
Going further once the first photo is done
The first successful image opens the door to the settings you leave alone at the start. Each variable has its own article, to read when the question comes up.
- Choosing and reading light-sensitive paper, its sensitivity, its emulsion side.
- The developing sequence, bath by bath, from developer to fixer.
- The logic of the pinhole diameter, which balances sharpness against brightness.
And if a technical word stops you along the way, the pinhole photography glossary gives its definition.
Framing without a viewfinder
A pinhole camera has no viewfinder, but you can still frame precisely. Stand behind the box with your eye level with the hole: a pinhole camera sees wide, roughly everything that lies in front of its front face.
For more rigour, draw two lines on the top of the box running from the hole to the edges of the paper at the back. They mark out the angle of view: whatever lies between them will be in the photo.
Seen in cross-section: the two lines joining the edges of the paper to the hole, extended towards the scene, mark the limits of the angle of view. What lies between them will be in the photo; what is in grey will not.
The beginner’s mindset in pinhole photography
Getting started in pinhole photography means accepting a degree of trial and error, because the process cannot be set like a digital camera, and every box, every light, calls for its own adjustments.
Éric Marais — Photographer, author of two books on pinhole photography (published by Pearson) and creator of the Sténoflex. He has run introductory workshops in pinhole photography and analogue developing from the very beginning.