How to make a dippold pinhole camera Materials • • • • • • • • • • 1 x A4 sheet of cardboard Scissors 1 x elastic band Template printed on plain white paper 1 x #10 sewing needle A roll of Fujicolor Superia 200 Craft glue Film spool (you can use one from inside a roll of film) Black gaff tape Aluminium foil By Jessi Gray, for Construction 1. Glue the blank side of the template paper onto a sheet of cardboard. 2. Cut along the outside of each piece. (Don’t cut along the yellow lines as they will become folds later.) Also cut out any white shapes inside the camera pieces. 3. Match the ‘e’ rectangles to the grey shaded rectangles of ‘c’ and paste into place. The ‘c’ piece should have a completely black surface when you complete this step. 4. Apply glue to the cardboard side of the ‘f’ piece, then fold in half horizontally, to form a black rectangle with a green spot on one side. 5. Repeat step 4 for piece ‘g’. 6. Select piece ‘c’ with the black side facing up. Fold each section upward along the yellow lines to meet at corners. 7. Cut 4 pieces of gaff tape approximately 1 cm in width, and 3-4 cm in length. 8. Seal corners of piece ‘c’ with strips of tape, removing any additional tape protruding from corner seams. (This is to stop the light getting inside your camera.) Note that ‘c’ has an additional section with a circle in the middle that does not need to be sealed down with tape. 9. 10. 11. Repeat steps 6-8 on piece ‘b’ which will become the front of your camera. 12. Holding the eye of your needle like a pencil, carefully press the point through the foil making a tiny hole in the centre of the circle in piece ‘b’. Check the hole by looking through the circle on the other side. It should be barely visible! 13. Select piece ‘b’, positioning it lengthways in front of you. Place ‘a’ lengthways in the centre of ‘b’, so that the side with the smaller squared hole, is facing downwards. Repeat steps 6-8 on piece ‘a’. Place the square of aluminium over the circle on the black inside of ‘b’. Secure with a small strip of gaff tape on both the left and right sides of the circle. Loading the film 14. Hold the film in your right hand and pull the film out gently with you left hand until approximately 20 sprockets are showing at the top. (Note this film is now exposed and needs to be wound on once inside the sealed camera.) 15. Sticky tape the end of the exposed film to the middle of the spool so that it fits neatly between the two wheels. (Make sure you hold the spool so the long end is at the top. It should look something like a man wearing a top hat.) 16. Load film into ‘b’ with the original roll of film feeding right to left into the spool, over ‘a’. Make sure the long end (‘hat’) of the spool is fed though the left hole on the top of piece ‘b’. Turn the ‘hat’ of the spool clockwise so that can see the film winding onto the spool. Two full rotations will be enough. Assembling your camera 17. Fit ‘c’ over ‘b’ so that it becomes the back of the camera. The long section should easily wrap over the front of the camera, with the two circular holes aligning. 18. Feed ‘d’ through the slit of ‘c’ at the front, top fold. Make sure that the circle end of ‘d’ is at the bottom and you can pull the tab through the slit with ease, creating a shutter for your camera. (Unlike the other pieces, it does not matter if the black or coloured side is facing the front of the camera; it’s for you to decide what looks best.) 19. Hold ‘d’ to the body of ‘b’ while you wrap a rubber band around the camera twice, crossing over at the back. This keeps the front section of ‘c’ firmly in place. 20. Place ‘f’ inside the top of the spool so the green dot is visible at the top of your camera. Place ‘g’ inside the top of the film roll so the red dot is visible. Use ‘f’ to turn the spool clockwise to wind film on. One full rotation is the length of one photograph. 21. Wind one full rotation after each photograph. Handy Hints • Depending on the quality of the gaff tape you have purchased, it may peel away while you are constructing you camera. You can use pegs to hold the gaff tape in • place while you continue to assemble other pieces if needed. • If you are worried about light getting into your camera through the seams, cover any present gaps with sticky tape to be sure. • The length of exposure when taking a photo varies depending on the film you’ve used inside. Use this guide to decide on how long to expose your photo. Remember to keep the camera still! • To get the film out of your camera, simple wind it back into the film roll, turning the ‘g’ piece anticlockwise. WRIT 6030 Portfolio