Now that spring is here – spring fever is here as well.  Part of spring fever means that everyone wants to get outside and do something.  Photography is a great way to get outside and explore.  With digital cameras readily available – we don’t necessarily think about how cameras work any more – we point and shoot.  But camera technology is built on fundamental physics and whether or not you are using a traditional film or digital camera the physics is much the same.  The only real difference is how the image is recorded and stored. 

Light still passes through a hole and is projected on the recording surface.  Lenses are used to help focus the light onto our specific medium.  To help study the concepts of physics used in cameras – building a pinhole camera out of simple materials that you can find in your home is a wonderful activity.  Depending upon how complex you want to get – you can even make a working 35 mm camera out of a match box.  Here is a link to 23 different pinhole cameras that you can build at home.