Basic DIY camera for educational use

petrochemist wrote:

bgstcola wrote:

Thanks but I think I will go for a scanner camera. I don't mind the sensor (scanner) being a blackbox, since the projekt is more about light and optics.

Large format with a scanner was exactly what I was going to suggest.

If your project is about the optics side then you don't really need the digital part at all just viewing on the ground glass could be sufficient. A normal camera can then be used to record the view on the glass if required.

Home made cameras are reasonably common in large format in a variety of complexities.

I agree. For example, here's a camera obscura I made for my lab's open house a couple of years ago to demonstrate how apertures can shape the out-of-focus point spread function (OOF PSF):

It's literally a box painted black with a single plastic element magnifier lens set in a simple 3D-printed mount... which has a rim that can fit filters.

The half clear, half blocked filter is used to explain that blocking half the rays still produces a full image. The half green, half magenta one then shows that by color-coding rays from left/right sides, you can directly create an anaglyph image (stereo viewable on the obscura using colored glasses). The one with the colored holes then demonstrates the quality improvement from having the left/right apertures have the same shape. Finally, the one with the UK Wildcat logo is used to show how OOF PSF shaping in general works -- making OOF PSFs look like the logo, rather than circular discs.

The screen is nothing more than thin velum in cardboard that you move forward/backward to focus:

And the image quality is, well, what you'd expect from a single-element plastic magnifier used as a lens:

Despite the f/2.5 aperture, the image is quite dim... which is why I usually point it out a window (it's dark and rainy today, so dim outside too) and also why we have black fabric clipped on the back so you can drape it over your head for better viewing.