The great thing about making cameras is that they’re really dead simple: box + light detector (film or sensor) + hold for light = camera. When there’s no lens involved, there’s heaps of room for creativity. While many people opt for more traditional materials like wood, metal, foamcore, or modify an existing camera, some people go all out.
Here’s a [doubtless incomplete] roundup of some of the stranger things I’ve seen people make pinhole cameras out of, to date. Note that many of these links have construction instructions!
- alspix‘s matchbox cam
- Wayne Martin Belger‘s Third Eye Camera (human skull) and heaps of other weird and beautiful stuff
- CameraTruck is self-explanatory
- Melsen Carlsen‘s vagina
- Katie Cooke‘s holiday card box cam; photos made with it and other pinholes
- Travis Gray‘s Mr. Photato Head (Mr. Potato Head toy)
- Adrian Hanft‘s Lego cameras: 35mm, medium format, photos made with them
- Marcus Kaiser used the Berlin Wall
- Chris Keeney‘s SPAMera (Spam tin, pictured above) and Mintycam (mint tin)
- The Legacy Project just set a world record for the largest camera and largest photograph using an airplane hangar
- Marcy Merrill‘s Pintoids (Altoids tin)
- Chris Peregoy built a pinhole out of a coconut, but I can’t find any info on it other than this
- Rodrigo Perez‘s large rubbish bin camera
- Martin Pilný, Mirek Kolář, and Richard VyÅ¡kovský’s Dirkon paper camera
- Thomas Hudson Reeve‘s cameras made entirely of photo paper
- Justin Quinnell‘s SmileyCam (his mouth) and toilet paper tube
If you’re looking to build your own, f295 Lensless Photography Discussion Forum is a great resource full of freakishly helpful camera hackers.
Know of anything I missed? Tell us!
You missed the clay camera, it’s on f295.
How about anamorphic cameras made from 35mm film canisters?
http://www.f295.org/Pinholeforum/forum/Blah.pl?b-cm/m-1142904974/
Here’s my friend Ross Orr’s coffee pot cam, and how can I not plug my own pinhole camera made from a book…
And for those who also like information in analog formats, have a look at the great book:
Adventures With Pinhole and Home-Made Cameras: From Tin Cans to Precision Engineering
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/2880467144/sr=1-1/qid=1150847634/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-7509548-5843022?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books
Nitpicky: the camera truck uses a lens to sharpen the images so it disqualifies it as a pinhole camera.
Thanks for the rest there are a few I didn’t know about before.
There is another “big” pinhole camera, but the URL is only in German language:
http://www.bauwagenkamera.de/
I may have to do a follow-up with everyone’s great links!
squeak, good catch! I got that confused with another camera truck that is a pinhole.
Theres my high capacity pinhole camera made out of fomecore, that’s kind of weird…
Howdy. I love the idea of making a weird camera like that… That’d be mighty fitting in fact. Dig it, fo’ real!
it’s funny to explore the form of pinhole cameras. I had read it once but I forget the Website, the camera is made with a house with black painted and use the window as it lens and it also use verry large photo paper. (sorry my english isn’t good)
it,s funny to explore the form of pinhole cameras. I had read it once but I forget the Website, the camera is made with a house with black painted and use the window as it lens and it also use verry large photo paper. (sorry my english isn’t good)
You missed the clay camera, it’s on f295.