Pinhole Rocket: Making a Film Box Panoramic Pinhole Camera 135

Updating my previous tipster, I’m going to show you how to turn an otherwise useless film box into a super wide panoramic camera! With exposed sprockets too?!! Go grab a film box now!!!

Me encantan los patos de plastico ;)

What you’ll need;

Any 35mm Lomography film box

A roll of 35mm film

An empty 35mm film canister with a small piece of film still attached (You can get these at any photo lab, just ask them, they throw them away so they’ll be more than happy to give them to you)

Aluminium foil (I cut mine from a soft drinks can)

Needle

Pen/pencil

Black marker

Ruler

Scissors/craft knife

Black tape

Regular tape

Black card

Paper clip

Magic camera box! – Image from Lomography.com

Begin by taking your empty box (I used the 800 ISO box as it was slightly bigger and sturdier) and cut open the bottom edge as shown

Now cut along the long folded edge

Open up and flatten the box

Draw an X to find centre and draw a small square in the panel shown. Cut out the square with a craft knife





Locate the lid flap and cut along the folded edge





You now want to fold back the loose piece of card at the top of the box and cut off the excess







Using a black marker, colour the inside of the box (this reduces internal reflections which will improve the quality of your images)

Making the pinhole

Cut out a small square from your aluminium foil, 2cm by 2cm will be enough, and carefully pierce the centre. Just push the tip through, but not the entire needle. The idea here is to get the smallest hole possible. ’The smaller the pinhole the sharper the picture quality’ apparently…





Take the piece of foil and align the pinhole to the square from your film box. Tape this in place with some black tape





Fold the box back to it’s original shape and tape the long back edge

Note – The tape and parts sticking out at the bottom is the shutter. I shot these illustrations out of sequence so ignore those parts for now

Loading the film

Take a fresh roll of film and cut off the header





Tape the tip of your fresh roll (left) to the film tip of the empty canister (right). Check that the film winds smoothly by turning the spool of the empty canister (right)

With the back of the box facing you, put both films in the box making sure the the fresh roll is on the left and the empty canister on the right

Now with the front of the box facing you, take hold of the canister (empty) and tape the lid shut







Check that the film can move freely through the gap. Open the lid and cut/adjust where necessary

Tape the film in place making sure the edge of the canister is flush with the gap of the box









Reach into the box and retrieve the loose film roll. Tape the lid shut and secure the canister as before







Again make sure the film moves freely through the gap. Trim the flap slightly if necessary





Making the shutter

Take a piece of black card and cut a rough piece to the size of 2cm x 8cm. Cut a small box, 0.5cm x 0.5cm, from the centre





Cut two new slots as shown, roughly 1/1.5cm each side of the square. These should be 1cm in height and roughly 1mm in width

Cut out another piece of card to the size of 8cm x 1cm

Carefully thread this new piece through the slots as shown







Pull this piece to the right aligning the left edges

With a pen, draw around the box

Take out this piece of card and cut out the marked box

Re-thread this card back and your shutter is complete! Test it by pulling it to the right (open state)





Tape this to the film box, aligning the hole of the shutter with the pinhole of the box/camera body





Test the shutter again to make sure everything is working correctly





Underneath the empty canister, tape a piece of paper/tissue to add tension to the winding mechanism. Adjust the tape by winding slowly and if the spool doesn’t spin back after winding, you’ve got it right





All that’s left to do is completely cover the box with black tape. Begin by taping up the edges, paying extra attention when taping around the film spools. The aim is to tape up the areas where the film is entering the box to avoid light leaks, but at the same time allowing the spools to spin freely





Box covered! Finish by adding a paper clip for a winder and your pinhole camera is complete!





To advance by one full frame, turn the paper clip counter clockwise by roughly two and half rotations

Shooting

Many people prefer to use pinhole calculators on the web to determine exposure times and I would recommend this too, but at the time of shooting my test rolls I just guessed and hoped for the best :)

With my pinhole camera I used 200 ISO film and shot in daylight. The exposures varied from 1-20 seconds and sometimes even more

As you can tell by my results, the camera was even wider than I expected. It pretty much captured everything and anything I put in front of it!

More of my results can be found here and here

Thanks for reading guy and girls. I hope you enjoyed my crazy ramblings, see you next time :)