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 Vyškovský’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!