Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A respected guide for students, amateurs, and advanced photographers - inside you will find more varieties of pinhole cameras for beginners, expanded instructional information on pinhole and zone plate practices, and new information on where to get pinhole supplies throughout the world. With listings of workshops, pinhole photographer's web sites, pinhole books available, and a guide to commercial and individual suppliers of pinhole equipment, this is the one guide you'll need to navigate the industry. Now in full-color, this classic offers a new chapter on camera obscuras, a more in depth "how-to" chapter for beginners as well as a new chapter for advanced photographers, and revised exposure guides and optimal pinhole charts.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface (p. ix)
• Acknowledgments (p. xv)
• 1 Pinhole's History in Science (p. 1)
• Holed Stones (p. 1)
• Early Pinhole Optics-Eclipses, Telling Time, and Optical Phenomena (p. 1)
• Noon-marks in Italian Renaissance Cathedrals (p. 8)
• The Pinhole in the Wave Theory of Light (p. 13)
• The Pinhole in Photography (p. 16)
• The Pinhole and the Eye (p. 18)
• Twentieth-century Pinhole Imaging in High-energy Physics (p. 20)
• 2 Pinhole's History in Art (p. 27)
• Brunelleschi's Pinhole Perspective Device (p. 27)
• Alberti's First Diffraction Camera (p. 30)
• Alberti's Intersector (p. 33)
• Leonardo da Vinci (p. 35)
• Anamorphosis-The Deception of the Eye (p. 39)
• The First Pinhole Photographs (p. 42)
• Pinhole's Popularity in Early "Pictorialism" (p. 46)
• August Strindberg (p. 49)
• Pinhole's Demise in the Early Twentieth Century (p. 51)
• 3 Pinhole's Revival in Art: The 1960s and 1970s (p. 55)
• Rebirth-The Late 1960s (p. 55)
• The 1970s (p. 63)
• 4 Pinhole's Revival in Art: The 1980s (p. 73)
• The Peter Pan Principle, or "I Can Fly" (p. 73)
• The Body as Camera (p. 74)
• Camera and Photograph as One (p. 78)
• Cameras and Images in the 1980s (p. 82)
• 5 The How-to of Pinhole Photography (p. 109)
• Making a Simple Pinhole Camera (p. 109)
• Loading the Pinhole Camera (p. 115)
• Making a Photograph (p. 116)
• Additional Mistakes (p. 119)
• Additional Possibilities (p. 121)
• Optimal Pinhole Formulas (p. 123)
• Making a Pinhole Turret (p. 128)
• Pinhole Camera Geometries (p. 131)
• Exposure Times (p. 143)
• Additional Technical Information (p. 145)
• Additional Hints for Building Pinhole Cameras (p. 149)
• 6 Zone Plates, Slits, and Other Apertures (p. 151)
• Zone Plates (p. 151)
• Zone Plate Cameras, Images, and Methods (p. 154)
• Pinhead Mirrors and Pinspeck (p. 160)
• Slit Apertures (p. 162)
• Other Aperture Alterations (p. 164)
• 7 Eye, Image, Camera, Mind: The 1990s (p. 167)
• The Shifting Image of Reality? (p. 167)
• 1990s Images (p. 169)
• List of Suppliers (p. 183)
• Index (p. 185)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Renner relates the development and recent artistic experience of pinhole photography using numerous quotations and examples from historical figures and current photographers. The pinhole phenomenon was recorded in China in 4000 BCE, but it was Alhazen in 1020 CE who first used the pinhole as an instrument. Today scientists use it for imaging, scatter hole X-ray, and space applications. The discussion about how to make a pinhole camera is enlightening. This technical instruction involves making the hole the right size and calculating f/stop, distance, and exposure using a light meter and charts. Included are techniques for using paper as the negative, making contact prints from the paper negative, using filters, and making a viewfinder. Most of the discussion centers on the flat film plane, but also included are curved, anamorphic (distorted), and moving film planes. The examples of pinhole photographs are excellent, and the variety of techniques used is inspiring, including black-and-white, litho, color, hand-tinted, Ilfochrome, and cyanotype and gum. Renner is founder and director of Pinhole Resource (a nonprofit organization to promote photography), lecturer, and co-editor of Pinhole Journal. Highly recommended. General; undergraduate through professional.