Pinhole Self Portrait Circa 1994 (scanned from a print)
I’ve been thinking of making a pinhole camera of my own. I have an older DSLR (Nikon D80) that I don’t use often. I am thinking of drilling a hole in the lens cap for a lens I also don’t use much, and then following the guidelines here.
A pinhole camera is as minimalist as photography gets: All you need is a light-tight box with a tiny hole on the front, and something light-sensitive fastened onto the inside rear of the box, and you can take a picture. In the process, you will get weirdly beautiful results, including infinite focus from near to far (or, often more accurately, equal slight fuzziness from near to far). “Once you realize that there are no knobs, no flashing lights, no buttons, dials, or digital displays to distract you, making pictures becomes fun again rather than a technical chore,” says Andrew Watson, who made this photo of the beach in Brighton, England on Kodak Ektar 100. You can make your own pinhole camera (out of practically anything), build a kit camera, buy a ready-made camera, or, simplest of all, use the camera you already have, whether film or digital, SLR or ILC, with a pinhole body cap in place of a lens.
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You can turn a camera’s body cap into a pinhole with a little fuss. Drill a small (1/8-inch) hole in the center of the cap. For the pinhole itself, use soda-can aluminum. Cut an inch-square piece of the can with a snips, and pierce the center using the smallest needle that will go through. Then tape the pinhole over the hole you drilled in the body cap.
(click here to continue reading How To: Take Pinhole Photos | Popular Photography.)
I also have a 35mm camera that I don’t use, perhaps I should look into getting it running again (it does need some repair that I keep procrastinating over)