A pinhole camera by definition has no glass lens; instead, it uses a tiny hole in a flat plate of some sort to refract the image onto the film plane. Pictured here are views of a pinhole camera I recently put together. Camera body is from an Argus Model 21 Markfinder. The shutter was broken and I decided it was not worth fixing. The viewfinder optics were donated to another Argus user and replaced with portions of a finder from a dollar store camera, the shutter was secured in the open position, the lens removed, and the top release button converted mechanically to be a wind lock release only. Pinhole plate is pie tin material, the shutter assembly was a new old stock Wollensak Alphax, intended for a medium format application, and the lens shade was made from portions of a plastic film tub. The red front covering was cut from the cover of a day planner book. Pinhole is between 0.2 and 0.25 millimeter in diameter, and its focal length is 37 millimeters. I calculate the f: stop as approximately f:175. Camera has not yet been tested with film in its current configuration.
My God! I've never even THOUGHT of doing such a thing to a "real" camera. A cardboard box is what I'd always been led to believe was the basis of a pinhole camera. I can't wait to see the pictures!!!
Richard, 1)the shutter fit well, it went together with the body nicely. 2)the installation can be undone and the shutter retrieved, I used threaded connections. 3)I plan to use mainly the T and B settings, with a cable release, for the most part. Thanks, Ed.
Richard Heather
22-Jun-2005 01:06
Why put such a nice shutter on a pinhole camera? You would need very fastfilm to have an exposure of <1sec