High School Science Fair Project With Photography

I am in 10th grade and would like to do a science fair project on photography.

Last year I developed B and W film in coffee and another substance vs. the actual developer.

This year I would like to either expand on this or start off with a new topic but still in the photography category.

This project would be going to the science congress and would have to be detailed and at a high level.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Hi Abe!

 

That is terrific thinking how to use different chemicals to develop film.

 

Here is another idea for film developing:

 

http://www.photo.net/black-and-white-photo-film-processing-forum/00CbMx

 

What about printing? Do you have the opportunity to use a darkroom? Lots of different things can be done. Take a peek

at the different toners to change the color of black & white papers.

 

Check here:

 

http://www.photo.net/search/?cx=000753226439295166877%3A0gyn0h9z85o&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=UTF-

8&q=paper+toners&qx=paper+toners&section=all&sa.x=0&sa.y=0&sa=Search

 

Hope this helps you.

 

Nice to see your interest in photography!

Let me try the link again:

 

<p><A href="http://www.photo.net/search/?cx=000753226439295166877%3A0gyn0h9z85o&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=UTF-

8&q=print+toners&qx=print+toners&section=all&sa.x=0&sa.y=0&sa=Search">Toners</A>

 

<p>If this link doesn't work I just typed "print toners" in the search and a group of threads came up with photone.

 

<p>Best Abe!

Other topics could be sensors, types and properties. Look at the tutorials here: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/

If that interests you, you might find a lot more detailed information. A high level project would involve an experiment, not just a display of information already known. BW is chemical oriented, rather archaic technology. Senosors are electronics and involves the physics of light. All pixels are not the same. Both require some equipment. Hope this helps.

I have all the professional photography equpment I could ever need.

I have access to a darkroom.

 

Any other ideas?

Something has to be measured, as in the criteria for the project.

You could file a report your findings with the various exposures/f stop/times of exposure on the enlarger/various heights

and noted/contrast/development times you achieve whilst working with your negs in the darkroom and your results relative

to contrast, exposure/zone system used.

Measurements come into play in several ways for pinhole work.

 

Here are a few questions for you to ask while planning and executing the project that might help guide your efforts.

The pinhole camera is simplicity itself which makes it easier for you, the scientist, and your appreciative audience to

better understand the photographic principles and theories you illustrate in its construction.

 

How does an f-stop value connect the focal length of your camera to the size of the aperture opening?

 

Make a chart to calculate photographically useful f-stop apertures for tiny openings. (Perhaps this is an opportunity

for you to learn more about Microsoft Excel.) How does this help you figure out proper exposure times?

 

What is reciprocity failure? Did you make exposure adjustments because of this? What were they?

 

Study various theories on optimum pinhole size. Why are they so complicated? Which theory works the best?

 

Study various ways pinhole camera builders use to make apertures. Do you need to know more about putting a tiny

hole in something than which end of a drill bit is which? Is it practical to make a real pinhole the same size as the

optimum a theory yields? What difference does it make? How did you compensate for this?

 

Why is the resulting image upside-down and backwards?

 

Build your camera and present the photographs you took with it. Document the steps you needed to get it right.

Describe the ideas and tools you applied. What did you learn about photography?

 

Good luck.

To meet the "testable" requirement, one of the things you could do is use math to illustrate what you wanted to do, and

then carry that project out to see if the results fell within your mathematical predictions. If not, why not, etc. ?

If you need to beef up your project with some math, there's plenty of math related to optics and photography out there.

Whether you have simple, arithmetic-based math skills, or advanced multi-variable calculus skills, you should be able to

find math problems within the scope of your educational progress that can be used to show/test a hypothesis.

 

For some good diagrams, sometimes people who make introductory explanations of large format photography serve as

good hosts. http://www.largeformatphotography.info/ is a website that has some good links.

 

If you get into using math with photography as part of your project, it might help to have a mentor or more experienced

person help to guide you. That way, you can get the project done without straying too far off of track.

 

Good luck. J.

Being able to measure could help to make your project successful, for a science fair. For example, let's say you decide

to make a pinhole camera, as suggested above. But, you're a beginner. The first time you try, you might fail. You tried

to make a pinhole, but instead, you accidentally jabbed a huge, gaping hole in the thing. Your pinhole camera doesn't

work on the first try. The hole is way too big. How much too big? Record that. That's an example of building

something that's outside of the required tolerances. If nothing else, measuring and documenting the failures can show

some of the limits to the ideas.

 

Then keep on with the project, and try to build a pinhole again. You can do it.

 

So, what I'm getting at is, if you mess up a few times, don't give up. When you're exploring new stuff, it's normal to have

some setbacks. Hopefully, you're going to be a better student than I often was, and will steadily get the work done and

keep the project on schedule. That way, if you do have problems, you can document them and continue striving to meet

your goal. Keep on, keepin' on. J.

If you're in a situation like I was, the Science Fair projects will probably go like this:

 

At first, everyone's gonna be excited about getting the thing done. This stage will occur while the teacher is talking

about it. Then, everyone in the class is going to have a bunch of good intentions. Some of them will get books from the

library. Then, something else will come up. People around you will begin to lose focus. They're gonna start blowing off

the homework.

 

Some weeks will go by, and then it's almost Science Fair time. A huge panic will secretly descend on every member of

the class. At the last minute, or sometimes the weekend before, the whole class will scramble around and try to slap

something together to meet the requirements.

 

The teacher will be able to tell who was scrambling around. Trust me on this.

 

This is where you come in. Hopefully, all along you've been doing you're homework. You've been busy, too, but every

day you plugged and chugged at it a little more. Two weeks into the project you almost lost hope because the project

looked so big. But, you kept on. You did the research. You read the books. You built the test materials for the project

some time before it was due. During those last few days before the due date, you didn't have to build everything from

scratch and totally write the report from a blank page. You just needed to put on a little final cosmetic polish.

 

Trust me on this. I have failed a great many school subjects. I have also earned some good grades, too. Usually, I'm a

B student, but sometimes I got A's. Pretty much every time I failed, it was because I didn't do the daily work. Every

time I succeeded, it wasn't because of some monumental last-minute push. It was because I had done the homework.

 

Even though it's boring or lonely or hard, do that homework. Don't cheat. Don't procrastinate. Plug and chug. It will pay

off. Trust me on this. All good things I have achieved in my little, plain jane life have been because I was investing

daily in trying to point in the general direction of the goal. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to my own kind of

homework now. Good luck. J.

Thank you all for your suggestions. (By the way, I am April, Abe's daughter)

I have chose to do my science fair research on infrared photography.

Thank you for all your help.

If any others have more information and scientific applications towards infrared photography, it would be wonderful if you could help me out even more.

Thanks.

Infrared. Abe and April, I recommend that you consider confining your academic interest in infrared to the readouts

provided by digital cameras. Sometimes, getting infrared film to work right can be harder and a little more expensive. It

may not be a good idea for a beginner project. I recommend that if you are going to use infrared film for a project, that

you consider having an experienced grownup around to provide you with some guidance and some help.

 

Some of the things that we think of when we say "infrared film" are just beyond the capabilities we see in the product.

For example, yes, it is true that thermal imaging can be done with a form of infrared detection; we see this in hi-tech

thermal TV cameras all the time. However, that form of infrared is beyond the range of the kinds of infrareds detectable

with most films. If these kinds of details are news to you, I'd say that's a red flag; do some more research. If they're

not, you're probably on the right track.

 

Unfortunately, some of the best-performing infrared films are not as available on the market as they once were. One of

the pitfalls with infrared photography, from a consumer's point of view, is that if you really get into it, you may end up

doing a lot more work just to generate the same kind of black-and-white image you might make with visible light.

 

That said, any tech data you have about your filters are sure to support some basic projects about measuring light. I

recommend knowing your equipment so well that someone can wake you up in the middle of the night, and you can tell

them how many nanometers of wavelength your red filters and IR pass filters (if you have one) can handle. Also, you

will need to know some basic facts about what kind of light your film or your sensor can record.

 

Much of that information is usually included in the tech-specs data sheet that comes with most products. Unfortunately,

it's also one of the first things a new purchaser might ignore or throw away. If that happens to you, don't despair. You

should be able to use your internet search skills to download a copy of the info from the manufacturer.

 

Also, Abe has probably already guided you over to these other webpages. If not, here they are:

 

First off, Photo.net itself has a bunch of good pages on questions people have had with infrared. Usually if you go into

the forums, you'll find an "old posts" section on the right side of the page. I think the film-based ones and the alternative

photography forum both have some infrared listings. Looking over these may not help your project directly, but they

could clue you in on some of the pitfalls and troubles people have had with infrared.

 

Second, www.alternativephotography.com There's a whole big section on infrared in there. I recommend it.

 

Third, get this, I had a look at a site called www.naturfotograf.com I came across it when I posted some problems I had

with some flower photos. This awesome site features the results of some tests one guy did when he was examining the

patterns in flower blossoms that are immediately invisible to humans. I thought his test pictures were real interesting.

Also, some of his findings alluded to some of the causes I was experiencing when I was having trouble photographing

some species of flower blossoms.

 

Good luck. Don't forget to do that homework! J.

John, while your advice is quite good, I don't think it's safe to assume that April needs to regularly work hard to succeed. It's probably true, but not necessarily. I'm a high-school teacher, BTW.