Film canister camera

I figured that a quick and dirty way to get into the pinhole game would be to convert a film canister into a camera. So far, I have done the following: 1) Cut a square hole from an Ilford (all black) canister. 2) Using a needle, place a pinhole into an aluminum square from a can. 3) Using fine sandpaper to remove the burrs. 4) Epoxy the aluminum over the square hole and seal around the aluminum with electrical tape. 5) A flap of electrical tape will serve as a shutter.

I went to Mr. Pinhole's f-stop calculator, and got a value of about f/83, which translates into an exposure time of 1/4 sec for 100 speed film. I plan on using a piece of 35 mm film, curled around the inside of the canister. This seems short for an exposure, but make sense due to the small focal distance. Should I just pull the film enough to get a longer exposure, or does 1/4 second seem do-able with the shutter above?

You would probably have problems with camera movement from such an arrangement unless you can make a mechanical shutter of some sort. You may be better off using a strip of print paper so the camera can sit long enough without being handled to get an unshaken image.

Yeah, the paper is another option. I am looking around our lab to see if there is any oddball microscopy film around that might rate out super slow.

ND filter? ND filter and 25 speed film?

There are many ways to prevent movement of a pinhole camera during exposure. I usually incorporate a tripod socket. It is simpler to clamp or weigh the camera down to something solid.

The most common arrangement of pinhole and film in a cylindrical camera is with the pinhole in the side of the cylinder opposite the center of the film. Taking the diameter of a film cannister to be 30mm and using http://www.pinhole.cz/en/pinholedesigner/ with a user constant of 1.5, I get a pinhole diameter of almost .2mm and f/150. This should give near optimum sharpness in the center of the image. A pinhole of about the same diameter can also be placed in the end of the cylinder.

Jim,
Your description is pretty much what I have made. Although, I measured my pinhole closer 0.3 mm. It sounds like I should be able to pull the film a couple of stops ~ 25 speed, and when I account for reciprocity, I should get a shutter speed of over 1 sec. I could also use it less than sunny conditions to start. I am fairly confident that I can rig up a tripod mount to keep the camera steady for over a second. It was the 1/4 second that was worrying me.