Handmade camera for next to nothing

[trittium]

I bought a bought a dirty old oak box at salvation army and transformed it into a beautiful homemade pinhole camera. It look a lot of old english scratch cover wood polish to get it looking good, but Here it is. The box cost 75 cents

I made a hole in the top with an exato knife and glued a brass washer over it. I cut weather stipping ($1.98 for a 12 ft roll) and cut it on an agle to make it light tight.

Then I cut out the bottom of the box to allow light to pass through. The whole thing is held together using tension from rubber bands. A 4x5 back can be held on as well as a 6x9 rollfilm back.

Finally I tapes a piece of light light tight plastic on the inside of the camera with a tiny pinhole in it.

This just goes to show you that with a little thinking and a little work, you too can make a beautiful easy camera. I will post some image taken with this later. I need to work out exposure times for the camera.

 

[davidbivins]

This rocks. Thanks for posting it.

 

[erikhaugsby]

That's magnificent--are you able to get a 4x5 film holder to hold under the groundglass?

 

[robin a]

It's too cool.........Robin

 

[muz]

Beautiful work, puts my paint can pinhole camera to shame. I'd love to see some photographs taken with it.

 

[trittium]

Thanks everyone! To answer Eriks question, the ground glass is actually 9x12(old plate film size) in a 4x5 adapter. I have a 9x12 plate film to film 6x9 roll film adapter I am planing to use with that. I am trying exposures with 4x5 right now. I am hoping to develope them tonight.

 

[trittium]

I am having some issues. The original pinhole was way too small. The washer was also blockinging off some of the pinhole. I solved this by mounting the pinhole on the front washer. I am also having issues working out exposure time with 4x5. It takes so bloody long. I have to get my roll film back, back. It is currently attached to my voigtlander alpin that is at the repair shop. 🙁

 

[RML]

With pinhole photography, shutter times can run into minutes, even hours. It's definitely not a technique for the impatient. 🙂

 

[john neal]

RML is right - reciprocity failure can push your exposure into hours - there is a nice pinhole designer / exposure calculator at www.pinhole.cz by David Balihar - made things a lot easier for me 😉

 

[Jeroen]

Talking about dirt cheap pinholes, anyone with a decent printer can build a 35mm camera: http://www.pinhole.cz/en/pinholecameras/dirkon_01.html

 

[trittium]

Finally got some decient results. I shot 10 years expired kodak ektachrome 64t and developed in in Diafine.

8 min exposure

5 min exposure

6 min exposure

5 hour exposure of me sleeping

 

[jano]

Hah, very cool 🙂

 

[reagan]

Pretty impressive. Should encourage others [like me] to give it a go.

 

[vicmortelmans]

Pictures are like waking up with a hangover... tends to cause pinhole eye-sight... quite realistic... imagine the headache

 

[Ash]

Looks good. I really like it!

Maybe I'll look into a pinhole for rollfilm, use a small red window to count frames, same method as yours - using an old wooden box.



nice cam, and nice images, but are the circular framing issues due to the size of the brass 'O' ?

 

[trittium]

Looks good. I really like it!

Maybe I'll look into a pinhole for rollfilm, use a small red window to count frames, same method as yours - using an old wooden box.



nice cam, and nice images, but are the circular framing issues due to the size of the brass 'O' ?

I don't think so, with a bright light the image extends to the corners, I just think that the hole isn't far enough from the back of the film. I think they are off center because the brass "o" isn't mounted perfectly.

 

[trittium]

I change the pinhole material to a thin aluminum sheet (aka aluminum can). 6X9 back on Ilford XP2

 

[jtzordon]

The exposure times don't look to bad for indoors! Foamcore works wonders for pinholes, too.


30 seconds on a bright, sunny day.


5 minutes in the shade; could have used a tad more.