The Ghost Effect and A Pinhole Camera: IDeaLight.competition Winners 2020!

SPIE Student Chapter VUB announced the winners of their IDeaLight.competition 2020. Our researcher Koen Vanmol won the Professional Jury's Choice Award with his video "A DIY Pinhole Camera", while Sara Abbasi received the People's Choice Award for her explanation of "The Ghost Effect". They both receive a nice prize and an official certificate from our Student Chapter!

The video "A DIY Pinhole Camera" from Koen Vanmol won the Professional Jury's Choice Award. The explanation and demonstration of the working principle of a traditional lens-based imaging system and a pinhole camera convinced the jury. They highlighted the clear explanation of the principles and the educative approach of the video.

Koen Vanmol: "In this video I explain the basic working principle of a traditional lens-based imaging system, like a DSLR camera, and compare it with the principle of a pinhole camera. The latter can make images of an object without the use of a focusing lens. Such a camera system can easily be made at home with some aluminium foil and a sensor (like the one in a DSLR camera). Have fun experimenting!"

Materials: Cardboard, aluminium foil, needle, black tape and black marker, DSLR camera

Sara Abbasi won the People's Choice Award with the video "The Ghost Effect". "Sara’s explanation helps to address the experiment to a young public", the jury said. "We like the creativity of the experiment and the easy way it was made to reproduce at home."

Sara Abbasi: "To start, the transparent film used in the video has a different refractive index than the air around it; so light in the two media propagates at different speeds. When light reaches a boundary between two materials with different refractive indices, typically some of the light is reflected and the rest is refracted, or transmitted at an angle. When you play the 3D hologram video, light propagates from the phone to the transparent film. Some of the light is reflected by the film and reaches your eyes. Since we have four sides of the transparent film in our pyramid, the image appears like a hologram."

Materials: Plastic Sheet, Ruler, Screen, Ruler, Scissors, Pen