The experiment with pinhole cameras revealed that their history, incorporated into that of the camera obscura, was the result of a retrospective vision that prevented us from appreciating both their respective evolution as technical objects and their still unexplored creative potential. By investigating why the history of the pre-photographic camera obscura and that of pinhole cameras so frequently merged, a fascinating and seldom-considered machinic narrative came to light. In this way, pinhole cameras were revealed to be modern rather than a-technical, complex rather than primitive, associated despite themselves and by default with 'poor' ways of thinking about photography. By linking pinhole photography to a technical lineage of diffractive optical systems, it has been possible not only to question a new dialectic of observation and recording but also to understand certain visual issues that bear witness to a paradigm shift that has taken place between cinematic and digital photography.