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wow the image sharpness is absolutely amazing!

Yes folks, April 28 2013 is Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day, the perfect excuse to build a matchbox pinhole camera!

Jonathan Shannon sums up what it's all about and has a go himself to prove the matchbox really works over at Time Out New York....

Hi,

This sounds great, I'm looking forward to seeing the results

Some good tips too.  Yes, the film does tend to spring back, and your scrunched up paper solution is exactly what I do.  a small lump of sponge foam works well too, taped across the bottom of the take up spool to add a bit of resistance.

Sounds like (despite the problems with tape sticking to the film) the frame clickers worked too, well done as these can be a bit tricky to get working first time!

My daughter is 12 and also probably wouldn't know what film was if I didn't regularly embarass her by taking a large clunky film camera or even a matchbox camera with me when we go out.... no doubt the many of the same students who have never seen a film are regularly applying instagram filters to their mobile phone snaps to get a similar look the matchbox camera will produce naturally!  

Please do come back and post some of your results

First of all, thanks for the guide! I displayed your website and guidelines on the projector for my students to follow. We made 6 cameras in all.

I have yet to develop the photos, so the results are to come.. I'm somewhat optimistic having seen the photos that others have posted. I don't mind a little leakage or blurriness, I think it will add to the end effect!

Ok, so generally everything in the construction process went smoothly, but there were a few problems when it came to 'capturing the moment'..

Firstly, some films wound on but would then spring back, the film wasn't properly attaching to the reel I guess. Obviously the film didn't go back into the new roll, but it was a little annoying. To rectify this we scrumped up some tape and placed it at the bottom of the film roll and then placed some more tape over that. It worked to create enough friction to stop it rewinding but not enough to make it difficult to turn onward.

The second thing was that at the place where the ticker met the matchbox there was a small gap and sometimes the tape stuck on top of the film. I guess some students wrapped it up too tightly. We managed to loosen it enough to keep it running, but next time I figured that placing some non sticky material over the space first and then taping over that would be better.

Apart from those issues, the students found the project very fun and of course learned a lot in the process. Would you believe that most of them had never even seen a film before!? I guess at their age (12-13) they were all brought up with only knowing about digital cameras.

Anyway, so I will get the photos developed and post some of the results soon. Fingers crossed!

Hey, so great stuff here!  I really like your half frame matchbox.  It's always going to be a bit tricky to cut things down that small and avoid double exposures and overlaps but they work to your advantage in many shots, nice work! 

just had another roll developed, didn´t work out as well as the one before. was trying to make half sized pictures, so that each frame contains two pictures (18mm on 24mm cut out on the tray of the matchbox). on some pictures it worked well, but most are destroyed by massiv sunleaks. also another problem is that a lot of the pictures got cut in half, so i need to make the cut out in the tray even smaller, so that i can be sure that they don´t overlap. also i think the two pictures which are on one frame should be about the same brightness, because of the automatic scanner at the fotolab.

http://s1274.beta.photobucket.com/user/Clem_Ens/library/Matchbox%20Pinhole%20Burning%20Chicken

finally my first digitalized roll. minimum exposure time about 15 seconds, but quite random (sometimes with counting in my head, sometimes without). since most of them just expose a circle in the middle of the film, i built a new camera which exposed just 18mm on 24mm of film, so i can take two pictures per frame, 4 clicks per picture. i will get them soon.

i uploaded the whole roll here: http://s1274.beta.photobucket.com/user/Clem_Ens/library/Matchbox%20Pinhole%20Vogelsang%20and%20A-Flat

some nice pictures:

That happens from time to time!  It's a bit annoying, but you just have to live with it.  It happened less when I switched to thinner clicker material though (bits cut out of the side of plastic food containers, just need to experiment to find something that works best)

To wind without the clicker, you need to be sure first that you've taken up the slack in the canister (hold the spindle of the other roll tight and keep winding on til you feel the full roll spindle start to move) then give it about 1/2 a turn.  At the start of the roll that might not be enough, but sometimes the overlaps give interesting "happy accidents"!

Don't worry about it too much, just feel happy that whatever happens you'll end up with some unique photos  

(Also check out the "ice cream clicker" thread)

Hi, I have just finished making my camera, but my clicker isn't working! I have no idea how far to turn it, as I have already exposed some film when loading it. I know this sounds like a silly question, but how many revolutions of the take up spool would be enough to advance the film without wasting any of it or double exposing? Thank you!

Yes, ISO400 will work fine.  You just need to shorten the exposure times.  In theory, ISO400 film should require 1/4 the exposure time of ISO100 film.  So for an exposure that would take 1 minute using ISO400, just leave the shutter open for 15 seconds with ISO400.

Indoors or in dull conditions this is a bit of an advantage as you don't have to wait so long!  The only problem arises if trying to take photos in very bright sunlight.  ISO100 film requires about 1 second exposure time, ISO400 will only need about 1/4 second.  It can be a bit difficult to operate the cardboard or tape shutter this quickly and while keeping everything dead still.

The best thing to do is to open the shutter but keep a fingertip tightly over the pinhole.  Then, making sure everything is steady, briefly remove and replace your finger from the pinhole, and close the shutter making sure no light creeps in.

Having said all this, just keep in mind that this is not an exact science, the film will be forgiving enough to produce an image wven if you're quite wildly out with the exposure times!


Good luck!