- Joined
- Oct 29, 2007
- Messages
- 144
- Format
- 35mm
In honor of WPPD 2016, I recently converted a Zeiss Ikon Nettar 515/2 to a pinhole camera.
"Why on earth would you do such a thing?", you might say.
Well, the camera body is in lovely shape, though the lens was wrecked. So here is what I did:
1. Remove the lens elements - pretty easy and what you have left is a nice shutter mechanism that even has a T setting.
2. Make a pinhole - mine uses a diet coke can and the pinhole was made using the dent, needle, sand method.
3. Cut the pinhole metal to fit into the front lens element holder - I also found an old washer to keep it in place.
4. Calculate the f-stop - the focal length is almost exactly 110mm from the pinhole opening to the film plane. I calculated the pinhole opening by scanning on my V500 - at 1200 dpi, the pinhole was 21 pixels across. That makes it (1/1200)*21=0.0175 inches or 0.444 mm - actually right on the money for the focal length (I got lucky). Thus, via the Mr. Pinhole site (http://www.mrpinhole.com/), thats an f-stop of about 248.
Here's a shot of the completed camera:
Though I did kinda sacrifice a cool old camera, I get a light tight body that shoots 6x9 on 120 film with an perfect shutter and cable release.
"Why on earth would you do such a thing?", you might say.
Well, the camera body is in lovely shape, though the lens was wrecked. So here is what I did:
1. Remove the lens elements - pretty easy and what you have left is a nice shutter mechanism that even has a T setting.
2. Make a pinhole - mine uses a diet coke can and the pinhole was made using the dent, needle, sand method.
3. Cut the pinhole metal to fit into the front lens element holder - I also found an old washer to keep it in place.
4. Calculate the f-stop - the focal length is almost exactly 110mm from the pinhole opening to the film plane. I calculated the pinhole opening by scanning on my V500 - at 1200 dpi, the pinhole was 21 pixels across. That makes it (1/1200)*21=0.0175 inches or 0.444 mm - actually right on the money for the focal length (I got lucky). Thus, via the Mr. Pinhole site (http://www.mrpinhole.com/), thats an f-stop of about 248.
Here's a shot of the completed camera:
Though I did kinda sacrifice a cool old camera, I get a light tight body that shoots 6x9 on 120 film with an perfect shutter and cable release.