I made this about a week ago anticipating WPPD. All my pinhole cameras are very simple things, usually made from tin cans or from mat board or foamcore. Ths one is a foamcore box with a mat board insert and mat board sliding pinhole. Most of my pinhole cameras are also 1-shot: the paper has to be changed in a darkroom or changing bag.

This design uses a couple things I learned here at F295. The main feature, and the one that I'm particularly happy with is the curved film plane with folds right at 11 inches to hold the paper in place. After considering different options to make the curved film plane, I ended up making this simple mat board insert. It was scored with a knife to make neat crisp folds. It will hold 8x11, 7x11 or 6x11 paper.

The paper snaps into position when loading, and it is held pretty firmly. In fact, it's slightly difficult to remove it. The idea came from David in his 10x8 camera. David used his camera not only to make negatives, but also to make contact prints from them. I've tried that a few times with my can-cameras, but without good success because the paper is not held in place tightly enough... I think with this camera it will work and two sheets of paper will have positive contact everywhere.

Another feature is a sliding pinhole for adjustable rise ( or fall if you turn the camera upside down ). The pencil arrows mark the highest rise available with pinhole covering the corners of the paper.

If you line the edges of the closing lid with duct tape, like you see here, then tape used to hold the lid closed will peel off easily without damaging the camera.


Ready for WPPD 2016 par Ned, on ipernity