csharp Loc: Massachusetts Berkshires

When I was 13 years of age in 1945, I made a pin hole camera out of cardboard, painted black. I didn't know how to handle film so I used Kodak's thinest paper to record an image of my kid brother on a tricycle. I then made this contact print. Sixty-seven years later I can still remember the excitement as the image slowly appeared in the Dektol tray.

Anyone here have a similar experience? What moved you very early on in your photographic voyage?

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

I made a pinhole camera out of the box my Yashica Minister D came in. It was pretty fun.
Hope you're not snowbound!

Nikonian72 Loc: Chico CA

I used a cylindrical oatmeal cereal box, so the curved B&W paper captured more in focus than a flat surface would have. All I remember is the long exposure required.

wilsondl2 Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska

Love the oatmeal box. It gives a panoramic look. It's fun to make your DSLR into a pinhole. I put a short extintion tube on my NIkon D80 put tinfoil around the front and held it on with a rubber band and put a pinhole in the front. Here are a couple of flower pictures I took with it. - Dave

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

I made one in cub scouts. It was just a simple cardboard box with a typical removable lid. The negative went in the lid. I thought I was so clever.
A few years ago a friend and I made one out of his bedroom. It didn't have film. I guess it was actually a camera obscura. He would photograph the images on his far white wall. Now you can buy commercially made wooden boxes with a clever two size wooden dowel system to hold the 4x5 film back.

-lois- Loc: Oregon

Yep, did the oatmeal tube, too. It was interesting but it made me very glad to have glass and a camera that focused. We had to do it in college...clueless about them prior to that.

Pablo8 Loc: Nottingham UK.

I used a biscuit tin when I was about twelve years old. Got some off-cuts of bromide paper from the local photographer shop, and I was away, developed the images in the cellar of my parents house. Making a pin-hole camera, used to be the first project in the HNC 3 year Photography course. Don't know if they do it now though.

Mike Rankin

One windy day last summer I was in large shed with a corrugated iron roof about 15 or more feet high. It was not in good condition and spots of sunlight appeared in various places through the holes left my missing roofing nails. It is a busy room in a privately owned and impecunious aviation museum and just one of these spots was easily accessible, right in front of my eyes on a light coloured concrete floor. I tried to remember which way the sun would be and eventually traced the alignment back to the appropriate he in the roof. I looked down and saw an amazing sight. The brightly lit circular patch was about an inch in diameter, but around it, extending to a total area perhaps as much as 8 inches in diameter I could see clouds rushing by - going in the opposite direction form the real clouds outside. It was a fascinating sight that after a moment or two made me realise that I was not looking at a patch of light made circular by the shape of the nail hole in the roof. I was in fact looking at a projection of an image of the sun through a nailhole camera. I didn't make the camera, but the surprise and pleasure of seeing it made my day. Sorry, no picture was taken. I didn't have my camera with me, but the floor was not a good screen and a still would probably have been hard to interpret - a movie would have made a much clearer display of the effect.

Papa Joe Loc: Midwest U.S.

Csharp, you've kindled some very fond memories! It was about that same year, (1945-46) that I made my first pin hole camera. I photographed my huge Labrador dog. I so wish I would have saved that negative. I was given some 5x7 sheet film by a photographer friend. It was right on the 'expired' date, but still worked fine. I cut it down, (what a job that was, in total darkness!!!), to approx 4x5 inches, and made my exposure in the cardboard camera. You're so right, about the thrill, seeing the image appear. I too used Dektol. Great multi-purpose developer. (That was back when I used household vinegar instead of Kodak 'stop bath'... (cheaper and easier on the hands!). Thanks for the memories.

Makaipi Loc: Lexington, South Carolina

Wow! That brings back some memories! Back when I was a kid in Massachusetts, we used to get theBoys Life scouting mags. I remember we did something with a cardboard box as per instructions for a pin hole camera. My father used to have a room in the basement where I helped him mix the chemicals for developing and stopping the photo process. Also building a big dryer and the big enlarger that looked like a hair dryer! Ok, sorry I jumped off theme a little, but when the digitalis came along, I jumped on them like fox on chickens!

Al FR-153 Loc: Chicago Suburbs

Oatmeal boxes must have been the favorite of Cub Scout Den Mothers. First it was a crystal radio project, then we progressed to a pin hole camera. Later, we progressed to 35mm, well, the film canisters for 35mm at least. We made neckerchief slide, first-aid kits out of them. All of the projects worked too. We used contact paper for the camera and yes, it was great to see our first images. I might add that I was already a proud owner of the Baby Brownie by that time and was using the camera in my avatar (my mother's camera) by then too.

csharp Loc: Massachusetts Berkshires

Thanks so much for sharing your memories, even recent ones like wilsondl2's flower images with, of all things, a pinhole DSLR.

Did you know April 28 will be Pinhole Day? (Happens to be my kid brother's 70th birthday.) Check this out. http://www.pinholeday.org/org/

csharp Loc: Massachusetts Berkshires

Got a foot of snow but no problem getting around once the highway ban was lifted.

Beowulf Loc: Aquidneck Island, RI

Built many different ones from oatmeal boxes, tin canisters,etc. I taught a journalism class for several years in which we made a great little pinhole camera using an unexposed 126 film cartridge, a small bit of shoebox cardboard to make the "bellows" to fit the square recess of the cartridge, some tinfoil, a pin, gaffer tape, and matte black spray paint for the bellows interior. Oh, and a short piece of Popsicle stick to stick into the film wind wheel of the cartridge.

Result: if correctly put together, a student could get a working pinhole camera that could take several dfifferent exposures on the film in the cartridge. The local processor would be advised to develop and print them regardless of quality, as they were pinhole exposures. Some fabulous , and some not so fabulous results, but they were thrilled at learning the principles of the camera obscura and actually building their own working camera.

Papa Joe Loc: Midwest U.S.

What an imaginative process! Making a pin hole camera like you folks made, makes my little cardboard one seem primative.