Mounting pinholes on cameras, cans, boxes, etc.

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I got a good deal on some outdated B&W photographic paper (out of date by years – sized 5×7 and 8×10), so I have been making two pinhole cameras from metal cans. One takes up to 7″ paper, the other 10″ without trimming. 

Nothing special at all – just painted inside and out with semi gloss black paint and then a second coat of flat black paint on the insides. I used the calculator on mrpinhole.com for the pinhole dimension that matches the diagonal of the paper and the diameter of the can the closest for the best focus. It appears the exposure times will be ~60 seconds for the 5×7 and ~90 seconds for the 8×10 on sunny days.  Also, I’ll be able to try some solargraphy with them.

Anyway, I figured out a way to blacken out the area around a pinhole to cut down on reflective glare within a camera. The problem with black marker is it is not thick enough to do the job without several coats. Black paint will find a way to enter the pinhole, making it very,very hard to remove it without making the pinhole larger and deformed. 

The method I discovered is very simple.

1) Put a roll of black electricians tape in a freezer.

2)Wait a couple of hours to make sure it is as cold as it will get.

3)Immediately drill a small hole through the tape roll (I used a 3/32″ drill, if I need more, I will use a 1/16″ drill) into and through the paper roll. Don’t press too hard as it will heat up the drill and tape, it took about 5 seconds to drill through each time with a brand new drill bit. Two or three evenly spaced holes around the diameter should do the job well, giving you a lot of masks to use.

4)Wait a couple of hours for the tape to return to room temperature.

5)Peel off a section of tape with a hole and using the pictures below as a guide, put the tape over the pinhole(of course with the pinhole itself showing through the hole, trim it, put another piece on the other side of the pinhole, mount with the pinhole showing through the hole in the camera, tape over the edges.

In the pictures below I was making six film canister solargraphy cameras. The last picture shows them ready to have the photographic paper installed and a final layer of tape around the tops. The pinholes themselves have a ’shutter’ made of a piece of electricians tape with the end folded over as tab for removal. The method should work with other types of pinhole cameras.

 

Double Slit Camera 4

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The super lens cap is finished, tested and a new page containing photographs has been created.

Double Slit Camera 3

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This morning I got what I needed together for this project. As I mentioned before, I have turned aside a bit from making a whole camera in order to determine something of the physical characteristics needed. This will be a lens cap on steroids, so to speak. I am using a set of macro rings as the basic structure, single edge injector razor blades for the slit edges, black core foam for the blade holders and information I have gleaned from the internet. If the findings are OK, I will then turn to making it in a 4×5 MF wooden camera with a Graflex roll film back using 6×7 negatives.

A few words here on the internet information – there are many references to slit cameras, however, most are related to either cameras used to determine finish line winners or the very interesting experiments on quantum physics showing how light travels as both waves and particles depending on whether they are being observed or not – real SG1 tech talk, huh ? Try this for a starting point – you will start wondering when the Asgard are going to beam you aboard – I hope you have on clean undies – LOL.   http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=usTOM8vffB4 or search the internet for>> Dr Quantum <<

 Further, the little related to what I am doing is mainly of the sort “I am going to make a double slit camera and I am all ready to make it, and it is going to be neat. Can anybody give me information on how to do it?”, or, “Here is a link to (pictures, information, guidelines, etc)”; a vast majority are either dead or not having anything related to the subject. The three places I did find that had needed information are enough to get going, I will either place the information or the links on my www.photographyhacks.org website after I actually determine if they are worthy.

So, here I am saying I am going to do it AND post pictures yadda, yadda, yadda ……….  Well, I do have good intentions of doing just that and you can determine if I follow through by checking back here for updates. Below is a quick picture of my worktable all set to start.