The Pinhole (Day 2)

     Today's task involved attaching the front element to camera body. It is entirely possible to skip this step and just attach the pinhole aperture to the original frame, but I took this route for several reasons. The first was that it allowed me to use a smaller metal plate for the aperture. This was seen as beneficial because thin plates are flimsy, and I simply did not have any large sheets of metal that I was willing to part with. The second reason for the large wooden front was that it provided a wide, flat surface for the aperture to be securely attached, as well as the possibility for further securing the metal plate if some sort of strapping were attached to the front.

     Again, you can clearly see where I drilled too far into the front element, and the round edges that didn't get cut out as a result. How hideous! But just wait...

     I reached out via twitter to see what people suggested for making the aperture. You can buy all sorts of laser cut pinhole and slit apertures, but that costs money (remember, I'm trying to do this as cheaply as possible) and it would require me to wait for shipping. One suggestion on twitter was that I heat a metal pin and press it through a pop can. I don't drink pop very often, and was planning to use a deconstructed Tazo Tea tin, but I gave it a shot. And it didn't work at all!

     I made the pinhole by lightly tapping a finishing nail (same type I had used to construct all of the parts) into the metal sheet. Tap. Tap. Tap. And I was through. Barely. One point to consider (pun intended) was that the nail isn't perfectly round at the end. The "pinhole" therefore wasn't very round, and this is probably very bad. I say probably because I don't know! I know lenses don't always have circular apertures---you can find all sorts of shapes: squares, pentagons, hexagons---so I'm not sure this would matter all that much [Aside: if anyone has a square aperture with 500 micron edges, let me know how it looks]. 

     As this is supposed to be a pinhole camera, I decided to stay true to the concept. Once the nail was tapped ever so slightly into the plate and was beginning to pierce through, I switched to a straight pin and carefully pressed it through, spinning it around to round out the hole. The result looks pretty circular. I was hoping for a smaller aperture, but beggars can't be choosers and I will work with what I have.

     I had to affix the aperture plate to the front element, and I did this in a very ugly manner. I used trusty black duct tape to hold it down and center it. While not pretty, it is functional and serving its purpose, which is to simply hold the aperture in place until everything else is taken care of. My plan is to run brackets across the four corners of the plate, and then to lightproof the entire setup.

     A step in the right direction: looking through the pinhole. If you look very, very carefully you may see a point of light coming through the pin hole. This is it, folks. This is the beautiful simplicity of the whole endeavour. With this now taken care of, I have to get the film back to stay in place, and then it's mostly aesthetics from there. My current plan is to wrap the entire camera in garbage bag fabric, which is essentially a thick layer of black trash bags melted onto the surface. I have found this to be very sturdy and lightproof. I do not however know whether this material will stick to the wooden camera very well. I have only tried it with other surfaces. But more on all of that later.