Which camera to modify

[dickbromberg]

I am interested in a wide angle pinhold camera.

I built a pinhole camera according to plans I founed on rpmcameras.com.

It's 40 mm from the pinhole to the film plane. That works out to about f150.


It gives a nice wide angle image (23 X 58 mm) but is's subject to light leaks and the film advance is primative.

Can anyone suggest which commercially made cameras might be a good candidate to modify.

If possible I'd like to retain the shutter function (not absolutely necessary) and I'd like to retain the film advance function (important).

Maybe I can find something on E-bay if I know what tolook for.

Thanks

 

[DarkroomExperimente]

why not a Holga?

cheap and easy...you can get closer than 40mm too by removing the lens/shutter

 

[walter23]

Heh, with a damned holga the light leaks would probably be brighter than the image from your pinhole

But it's an option; you can tape them up to keep them from leaking.

f295.org is a good resource for pinhole-specific information.

You could pick up a couple of used 4x5 film holders instead and make a pretty simple box camera. Use rubber bands or small bungee cords to hold the film holder tight against the back of the camera, or come up with some kind of simple spring back or slide-in mechanism (e.g. a couple of cross bars on the back to hold the film holder tightly in place). 4x5 gives you better image quality anyway; less enlargement from your pinhole images, but you still get that nice pinhole softness. And ultra wide can get pretty insane; 50mm on 4x5 is completely nuts; 25mm is unbelievable. If you don't like woodwork (though in this case it's easy, you can even just salvage a box like a cigar box or something), I've seen plans for them made out of foamcore board.

The attachments are from a 50mm 4x5 pinhole camera.

 

[Greg_E]

Made for Mamiya 645 backs (35mm back shown). I think you can get down to about 20mm with that shutter (8banners), so whatever angle 20 mm over the 645 size film. I own several Mamiya 645 bodies, so making a pinhole that would use the same backs only made sense. If I was to do it from scratch, I would probably use a Mamiya RB or RZ back so that I could go up to 6x7. the only problem I could foresee with using a 20mm FL is where are you going to put the tripod socket.

 

[pauliej]

Some hobby/crafts stores have cheap wooden boxes that could be adapted to photo usage very inexpensively. They also have tin cans, sort of like popcorn cans, that could be used as well. These could be similar to paint-can style pin-hole cameras I have seen on the F295.org web site and others. See also the Flickr.com site for more ideas. Or google pinhole cameras and see mega hits come up too. Most of these sites have examples of inexpensive shutter ideas too, like guilotine (silmilar to a moving dark slide with a hole in it) and others.

I hope this helps you.

Paul