Want to learn how to design and build your own pinhole camera? The PinBox is a medium format DIY pinhole camera that teaches you just that.
Pinhole cameras are essentially easy to make, especially when you’re making them for 35mm film. But if you want to have an idea about how it’s done for 120 film, Hamm Camera Company offers to let you in on the basics with a new camera called the PinBox. Hot off the heels of the NuBox 1 Interchangeable Lens Box Camera, Robert Hamm has just launched the Kickstarter campaign for this DIY pinhole camera. The company’s goal is for the 6×6 medium format DIY camera to be a learning tool for anyone who wants to gain the basics of pinhole camera design and apply it to make their own. This is in support of the crafty photographers who like to DIY their cameras, encouraging them to go beyond the usual handmade pinhole cameras.
With this interesting take on the conventional cardboard pinhole cameras, the main draw of the PinBox is a design users can quickly customize and make copies of. According to the campaign, it comes with a PDF file with layout and instructions on A4-sized paper, so you can customize your PinBox camera as you see fit. “PinBox is the serious cardboard camera to truly service the DIY community by providing each backer with a complete kit AND the necessary ‘blueprint’ to precisely make additional cameras,” the campaign mentions.
But, that’s not all that Hamm Camera Company has done differently through the PinBox. They also incorporated the film rolls as structural elements of the camera, “over-engineering to make a strong design.” While cardboard pinhole cameras are mostly either very bulky or very flimsy, the PinBox offers a good middle ground thanks to the 120 film spools making it more sturdy. It also has precision apertures (acid-etched metal on vinyl disks) and 3D printed hardware for spool holders and winding knobs, which are all important components that can be transferred from one PinBox to the other.
PinBox Specifications:
- 120 format film
- 6 cm by 6 cm square image
- 12 images per roll
- An aperture value of f/120 or f/200. Your choice. We have a whole range of apertures to choose form in the backer survey, however, for beginners we suggest one of the above.
- Focal distance of 30mm
Keen to find out more and support this project? Head to the Kickstarter campaign to back the PinBox and get one for a super early bird price of $20.
All images from the PinBox Kickstarter campaign by Hamm Camera Company
