MY CAMERAS

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Clack

Agfa Clack is a camera that is easy to come by, at least in Sweden, at very reasonable prices. It is also an easy camera to convert to pinhole without any feelings of guilt, because it’s not a very beautiful or a good/bad enough camera to be any fun in its original state. Basically you just need to remove the lens, cut a few wires and mount the pinhole.

Thanks to its size the Clack Obscura is not a very wide angled camera which makes it suitable for portrait photography. On the other hand, a large camera means a big f-stop number, which in turn means that your models need to be very patient.

A really good thing about the Clack is that you can keep the cable release socket, so that the camera will get a touch of high-tech. Which is clearly visible in the image above.

f/240. Focal length=72mm. Takes 120 film.

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Isolette

Agfa Isolette is one of many 120 format rangefinder cameras from the 50s/60s that has the lens attached to a pop-out bellows. This means that the bellows can be removed! That done, you have a sturdy and reliable camera body to start building a very wide-angled pinhole camera from.

The shutter on this one is made from plywood. In short, a tool that will not fail.

f/110. Focal length 23mm. Takes 120-film.

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Hålga

When one of my Holga cameras kicked the bucket I turned it into what has become one of my favourites.

If you remove the lens from a Holga the focal length becomes fairly short, which is a thing I like. That means that the aperture value can be made quite large, which in turn means that you can use the camera without a tripod and still get decent results. On a sunny day the exposure is around one second on ISO 100 film.

I built the shutter for this camera from a black plastic letter rack which was soft enough to be easily cut with a fretsaw.

On the down side is the fact that the camera still has its Holga features intact, which means that the camera back might come off mid-roll. Rubberbands or tape around the camera prevents this kind of mishap. Unless you want to spice up your photo life a bit, in which case, of course, you will welcome all such accidents.

f/116. Focal lenght=25mm. Takes 120 film.

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Solstickan matchbox

Beneath this generous amount of electrical tape hides an ordinary matchbox. It feeds on 135 size film and is very convenient.

On sunny days ISO 100 film is enough to do sports photography with it. I have pimped my pinhole ride by adding a piece of thin metal that goes into the sprocket holes of the film, so that the film itself tells you loud and clear when you have advanced the film far enough.

Very wide angled, so you need to keep close to your subject!

f/75. Focal length=15mm. Takes 135-film.

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Cardboard cylinder

This camera is a cardboard cylinder, of the kind you would use for carrying around posters or drawings or sending them by mail. For the bottom part of the camera I fastened a tripod socket in epoxy, inside the plastic cap that comes with the cardboard tube. The cap itself is painted black and held in place by electrical tape.

The shutter is made from black stiff paper that slides sideways to reveal the pinhole. It is supported by more cardboard so as not to drift off vertically.

The lid is made from Plastic Padding, cast in a plaster mould made from the original plastic cap. Two keyrings are attached to the lid as a handle and the edge of the lid is taped with black tape to keep the light out.

The photo paper or film is mounted along the curved inside of the cylinder, so that the camera gets a wide angle of view and the images are somewhat distorted when viewed flat.

f/180. Focal length ca 70mm. Takes 120x90mm sheet film or photographic paper.

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Anamorphic cylinder

This cookie jar cost me 0.50€ at a thrift shop, and I would not pay much more for a camera and still call it a bargain. In its new life as a camera it has been fitted with a tripod mount and is able to look in two directions.

The photo paper is mounted vertically along the walls of the jar and if the pinhole on the front side of the camera is used, it takes the same kind of images as the cardboard cylinder above. But if you leave the paper in place and open up the top shutter it will instead take anamorphic images. The camera will then have a blind spot in front of it, and produces distorted, outstretched renderings of the peripheral surroundings of the camera. The “centre” of the image, as it were, will not be in the image. Very straight forward, in a way.

f/240 and f/250. Focal length=100mm. Takes 240x150mm photographic paper.

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Film canisters

These are among the simplest cameras you can make and the results can be wonderful. The pinholes are still made from metal, taped to the inside of a larger drilled hole in the canister itself. On a bright day you may want to minimise handshake effects by removing the tape in a dimly lit place (like a black bag) and use your finger as the shutter. But on a cloudy day the shutter speeds are up to 15-30 seconds and if you don’t use a tripod you are bound to add some extra shaking to the image making anyway so you might not find the need to minimise anything.

These are the same canisters that I use to make solargraphs.

f/40-f/60. Focal length=25mm (APS-canister) and 30mm (135 film canister). Takes photo paper (40x40mm in the APS canisters and 60x40mm in the 135 canister).

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Agfa Billy Clack, Ettopeico

They are very close to the film plane to interweave the images nicely, without getting so close to it that dark patches appear between them.

The seven eyed Billy is a sturdy body with wide angle of view and a tripod socked, and it has been named Ettopeico by an Italian pinhole friend of mine.

f/77. Focal length=22mm. Takes 120 film.

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Red Bull

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Lux

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