A pinhole camera is a camera without a lens. The image is produced by a simple hole. In order to produce a clear focused image, the aperture has to be extremely small, on the order of a pinhole. This lead to a huge depth of field and very long exposure time with traditionnal photographic films.
The image may be projected on a translucent screen for live viewing (popular for viewing solar eclipses; see also camera obscura), or picked up by film or a charge coupled device for recording. Such pinhole cameras are sometimes used for surveillance work.