In this project, I built a portable camera obscura.
Quick Inspo:
He makes these awesome full-room camera obscuras in his home and even hotel rooms.
I was particularly inspired by his terrain works, where he uses natural terrains and camera obscuras to mimic impressionist paintings.
This was motivated because I intend to use it in part of a longer-term project. Eventually, I want to get it to the level where I can record clear live videos through this.
This served as my first attempt at making a prototype.
I was given a fresnel lens with a focal length of 200mm but in my research, this would also work with a common magnifying glass. The only downside of this kind of substitution seemed to be that it would produce a less sharp image.
The basic setup is pretty basic, it’s essentially a box within a box with a piece of parchment paper attached to the end of the smaller box. The fresnel was attached with electrical tape and painter’s tape to a frame I had already made for another project.
Process:
During building the box, it was nighttime, so I played around using lights in the dark.
It was looking surprisingly ok.
I went ahead and finished a rough model.
Video Testing:
Further thoughts:
To expand, I want to get it to a better clarity and experiment with using different materials for the projection screen.
I saw this great video where they used frosted plastic and a portable scanner to extract the projected image, which I am super interested in pursuing.
The end goal is to have something I can run around town with and get reliable results, make content, and experiment with the form.