Sunday´s project

The clock´s ticking, the moment to get crafty has arrived..!

Today´s pick? Making a pinhole camera, using a Matchbox.
(As found over at Alspix)

What do you need?
- A matchbox
- An empty roll of 35mm film
- Some new 35mm film
- Some black tape
- A bit of foil

Let's get the crafty bugs out of the bed..!

First, mark out a 24mm square exactly in the centre of the matchbox tray, cut this out with a sharp knife as neatly as possible. Or make it messy if you like, it's up to you. This provides the image frame, any rough edges or card fibres will appear on the image obviously.



Now get a black pen and color the tray black. Also stick a pen inside the front of the sleeve and colour that black too.


Cut a small hole, about 6mm square, in the centre of the sleeve. Try to do this as neatly as possible to avoid fluffy fibres appearing in the image


Now for the pinhole. The very short focal length means that the optimum pinhole size is small, less than 0.2mm. Make a pinhole in a bit of foil/drinks can using you favourite method (wont go into it here, search the web), and stick it over the hole in the sleeve.


To work out how far to wind the film, Alspix has made small "clickers" from bits of plastic (The stuff used to bind documents). Cut a very thin strip and make a point at one end.


Now take the full roll of film. Stick the curved plastic to the back of the canister so that the pointed end pokes through a sproket hole by about 3mm. As the film is pulled out of the cansiter, the plastic will jump between holes and make a clicking sound.

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The clicker
- The key is to ensure the clicker plastic only goes through the sprocket hole by a small amount, and it seems to work best with the clicker very close to where the film comes out of the canister.
- First tip: Carefully wind back most of the film leader into the canister (don't go too far!!!) - this gives you extra film to test the operation of the clicker.


Note that the plastic ( Alspix uses a small bit of very curved plastic cut from a document binder) only protudes through the sprocket hole very slightly


Before reloading, gently pull the film out a couple of sprocket holes. The clicker should ride on the back of the film smoothly and make a click as it drops into the sprocket holes. It does? Good! It doesn't? Remove the tape, wind the film back into the canister again try repositioning the clicker slightly.


Snip the leader off as square as you can. Now splice the film with tape. Make sure everything is square....


...both sides. Trim off all excess tape carefully

Wind some film through to tighten the canister against the box, hold it there and wind a couple more clicks to make sure the clicker is still working.


Now tape it. Tape it good. Oui, Tape it reaaal good.
- Note the end of the clicker plastic is left visible. When the film is finished, grab this with some pliers and pull the clicker right out. Now you can safely wind the film back to the original canister.
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Now thread the film through the box sleeve. Then, push the inner tray in so that the base of the tray with the hole in in presses against the film, pushing it flat and proving the square frame.


You also need an empty spool to take up the film. Ideally, this will still have a bit of film sticking out, otherwise you have to carefully open the canister with a bottle opener, fix the new film end to the spool and re-assemble. Alspix has done this, but it's much easier to use a spool with some film sticking out. Splice the film together with clear tape. Then, wind the film into the take up canister, so that both canisters fit snugly against the matchbox. Make sure no film is visible at the back - you will use tape to seal this joint, so you don't want to be sticking tape onto the film!
- NOTE - make sure you dont wind the film back into the full spool at any point, the "clicker" plastic may rip the film.


All that remains is to make the thing light-tight. Wrap tape around the joints between both canisters and the box. Make sure all sides are well covered. The tape does a suprisingly good job at keeping the whole thing together and stable!

Place a small piece of foam on the underside of the takeup canister then wrap tape over it. This gives some tension and stops the film unwinding withing the canister each time you wind on.


Now make a simple shutter, a bit of tape will work, but Alspix prefers a sliding card shutter. The camera's now ready to take pictures! Find something suitable to wedge into the top of the empty spool to act as a handle to wind the film on, and count 6 clicks for each frame.

- Check out www.mrpinhole.com to calculate the optimum pinhole size, and work out exposure times for the film you use.

Alspix's worked out at around f90, which gives fairly short exposure times with ISO100 film, a second or two in daylight.

- Make sure you don't wind the film back into the canister with the plastic "clicker" attached - it will rip the film.

Have a look at some awesome results using this camera, over at The Matchbox pinhole pool on Flickr

Good luck, hope you enjoyed this : )