Photographer Travis Gray came up with this awesome and cheap mod to add a cable release socket to a Holga. Check it out!
Category: Camera Hacking & DIY
Weird pinhole camera roundup
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!
Double-sided camera
f295 member Longbow3 is building a double-sided, multi-focal length camera! It shoots 2×3 and is 30mm on one side and 90mm on the other. Sweeeeet!
Check it out at f295
Frankenflex homebrew viewfinder photography rig
Grant Hamilton built this rig to shoot the image on the viewfinder of his Kodak Duaflex. This is genius and pisses on all other efforts I’ve seen, my own included. He’s making some beautiful images with it, too!
He writes:
See the notes above [on the Flickr photo page] for a parts list. I used a Dremel tool to carve some slots in the side of the junction box to accept the film winding knob and neck strap anchors of the Duaflex. I also carved an opening in the front so the lens is unobstructed. The PVC pipe fits into the junction box with friction and the downspout sleeve is rubber and is fricition fit as well. I painted the whole thing with flat black paint and used varying thicknesses of adhesive furniture sliders inside the junction box so that the Duaflex is snug. There is a large gasket inside the tube, just above the junction box on the inside to prevent light leaks. The hardest bit to get is the PVC pipe because it is sold in 10 foot lengths. I scavenged mine from a construction site dumpster. See the gouges in the pipe? I wasn’t crazy enough to want to Bondo it to make it smooth. The other parts I bought for around $15.
More viewfinder photography in the Through The Viewfinder and Ground Glass groups on Flickr.
Dokomon Experimental: home-built cardboard SLR
Check out this insane home-built paper cardboard SLR with interchangeable lenses and waist-level finder by Alexander Domotenko! There are heaps of videos at the main project page and photos he’s made with in in this set on Flickr.
Too cool!
How to make a cable release and serial port cable for the Canon Digital Rebel & Rebel XT
"How to make an (electrical) cable release for the Canon Digital Rebel and how to trip the camera’s shutter with your computer’s serial port. Applicable also to some other Canons (e.g., Digital Rebel XT)."
Read instructions at Covington Innovations
Via MAKE Blog
Bicycam: a simple camera mount for bikes
Jens Almström writes:
When I opened my bike’s bell and examined it, I realized that the screw that held the upper half in place had the same dimensions as my tripod’s screw for the camera. Now my bell doubles as a simple camera mount.
Read tutorial at jensalmstrom.se
Via MAKE Blog
Lens made of ice
Matthew Wheeler took his first picture through an ice lens in response to a challenge by Scientific American and CBC calling on listeners to light a fire with a lens made entirely of ice. Too easy by far – Matthew took it one step farther and started photographing the natural beauty of his surroundings through the ice lenses he made.
Check out the photos (mirror site) or a video on DiscoveryChannel.ca.
Via Digg
DIY high capacity panoramic pinhole camera
John from Team Droid has great instructions, with step-by-step photos, for how to build a 30-shot 120 foamcore pinhole camera (phew!). He writes:
It all started on a long plane flight in the beginning of 2006. I was doodling in my Moleskine notebook and musing about pinhole cameras when and idea struck me. What if I made a camera that was panoramic and high capacity at the same time. I had been shooting with my 6×9 medium format pinhole (120 film) for a few weeks and was happy with the images but wished I could get more than eight shots a roll and have a wider field of view. What I thought was if I moved the pinhole closer to the film plane and rotated to aspect 90 degrees I could get dozens of images on a single roll of film and still get a pretty good sized negative. Turns out I can get about 30 images on a roll and even a quickly made pinhole will produce a satisfactory sharpness.
Check it out at Team Droid
Via the f295 Pinhole Photography Forum
Completely homemade folding pinhole camera
gabriel531 writes:
Here’s my most ambitious pinhole project yet – a 6×6 camera for 120 roll film with a bellows that can be pulled in to 50mm and extended to 90mm. The camera also has two pinholes – a 0.27 mm for the 50mm setting (equals f185) and a 0.36 mm pinhole for 90mm (equals f250).
This camera looks sweet! Unlike most folders, this one is built from scratch, rather than sticking a pinhole on an existing camera body. Great work!
The rest of this blog, Captured Starlight, is full of pinholey goodness. Check it out!
Read plans at Captured Starlight or discussion about it at f295 Pinhole Forum
Thanks to Paul Beard for the heads up!