rmanernan Qaaller Wynne How to Think About Exposure Time Exposure time is the time required for our camera to “fill up” with enough light to expose the film paper. Ithelps to think about this as what happens when water “pours” from two containers through different- sized holes: i = SS == ‘The same amount of water will eventually flow into each receptacle, but it will take longer when the hole is smaller. Similarly, light will “fill up” a pinhole camera more quickly through a larger pinhole. What impacts the time required to “fill” a camera with light? © Size of the camera (related to focal length) © Size of the opening (related to pinhole diameter or ) Determining a precise exposure time requires some calibration (predict, test, revise). You will need to know: | Together these determine how long it takes the camera to “fill up” with light. © Camera focal length © Camera pinhole diameter ¢ Film paper exposure time <—————_etermines how “full” the camera needs to be to get the right exposure. If there is 100 litle light, the picture will be underexposed, or dark; if there is too much light, the picture will be overexposed, or light. Copyright 2014-15, The Board of Regents of the University of Texas System. All Rights Reserved. Requests to reproduce any part of this material may be made to UTeachEngineering. Page 1 of SUnit 3: Discovering Design (Pinhole Camera) Lesson 8: Try It Out! U03_L08_04-RI-Exposure_Time STEP 1: Measure Pinhole Diameter Pinhole Measuring Option 1: Use the micrometer measurement of the needle’s diameter. This ‘method assumes that the needle size accurately predicts the hole size, which is true only if you punched the hole carefully. Pinhole Measuring Option 2: Measure the hole with a seanner. You can scan an image of the pinhole and measure the diameter directly. Be sure fo record the scanning resolution of the image. In the example below, the pinhole was scanned at 300 dpi (dots per inch, or pixels per inch). It was opened with MSPaint, shown below. Use SELECT tool to estimate the ‘number of pixels that the pinhole diameter spans in the image. » | Read the number ae a 1D} 45 x 6px CC ae a Use the “select” tool and to estimate the number of pixels that the pinhole covers. Then use dimensional analysis to calculate the approximate diameter of the pinhole. In this example, the hole’s diameter spanned 6 pixels in the image, so the pinhole diameter was: tin 300 pixels ~ 9-07" pinhole diameter = 6 pixels « Higher-resolution images give a more accurate measurement of pinhole diameter. Copyright 2014-15, The Board of Regents of the University of Texas System. All Rights Reserved. Requests to reproduce any part of this material may be made to UTeachEngineering. Page 2 of 5Unit 3: Discovering Desion (Pinhole Comers) Pinhole Measuring Option 3: Measure the hole with a digital camera or smartphone. This is similar to the scanner method above. Be sure to include a scale (e.g. a ruler) in the image if you do not know the mage resolution. For example, the image below was taken with a smartphone, and a ruler is placed horizontally in the photo. ‘You ean load the image in a program like MSPaint (see above) and 1. Measure the number of pixels that span the hole diameter using the “select” tool. In this example, the pinhole is about 26 pixels across. 2. Measure how many pixels correspond to a fixed dimension, such as 1 inch. That gives rough estimate of image resolution. In this example, 1 inch corresponds to about 1601 pixels, so the resolution is about 1601 pixels per inch. Calculate the real pinhole diameter. In this example: lin Pinhole diameter = 26 pixels “757 Siecle 0.016 in Copyright 2014-15, The Board of Regents of the University of Texas System. All Rights Reserved. Requests to reproduce any part of this material may be made to UTeachEngineering, Page 3 of 5Unit 3: Discovering Design (Pinhole Camera) Lesson &: Try Fi Out! U03_L08_04-RI-Exposure_Time STEP 7: Calculate the Exposure Time If we know the exposure time (1) for a small fistop (f), we can figure out the exposure time (T) for a big fIstop (F) by: T=t*2" where x =number of “steps” from f to F on the chart In our example, t 1 see x=9 Taso = (tec) * 2* = (0.1 see) * 2? = 51.2 sec STEP 8: Take a Picture Use the calculated exposure time to take a first picture (on a sunny day) and adjust the exposure time for subsequent pictures based on the results. If the weather is cloudy, add exposure time; cloudy days mean Jess light is coming into the camera, and so more time is needed to let in enough light. If students are interested and have available time and equipment, they might use light sensors to find a relationship between outdoor ambient light and required development time for their cameras. Extension Activity: Graphing and Interpolation If time permits, graph of predicted exposure time versus F-stop values. This may help you choose exposure times even when your F-stop value is not exactly a value given in the tables above, Let’s look at 2 made-up example. Suppose you want to know the exposure time for your camera with an F-stop of 190, but you only know the exposure times for F-stops of 150 and 200. If the exposure time for an F-stop of 150 is 35 seconds, and the exposure time for an F-stop of 200 is 80 seconds, you can plot these data (see below). The slope m of this line will help you determine the unknown exposure time t for an F-stop of 190. This method is called interpolation between the data points. *Note: we are interpolating linearly even though these are not linear curves. ; rise 80-35 _ 44 slopem =" = Fun” 200— 150 ‘ ¢=35 + m+ (190 ~ 150) 35 +0.9 + (190 ~ 150) tom Exposure Time (5) OR use the proportional relationships from similar triangles to salve for ¢ @ (450, 35) 80-35 t-35 Seererreeee cece easecereaiecea 200-150 190-150 E-stop Copyright 2014-15, The Board of Regents of the University of Texas System. All Rights Reserved. Requests to reproduce any part of this material may be made to UTeachEngineering, Page Sof 5