peanut butter pinhole.

mysteryscribe · Mar 16, 2006

I have been thinking. (dangerous thing to do I know)

I think I am going to make a peanut butter pinhole camera. I have this jar of peanut butter with a plastic jar and plastic screw on lid. I'm thinking paint the inside black leave the label untouched. Then drill a hole in the bottom, cement a pinholer on the bottom of it and make a film holder attached to the screw on lib. In the dark bag just screw off the lid and insert the film. Screw it back on and it would be light tight. Shouldn't be hard at all. It would certainly be unique. The lid should be large enough to put at least a 6x4.5 negative maybe a full 6x6. Maybe a second career here folks. But who is going to eat all that peanut butter. Now it if was dogfood cans i would be over like a fat rat/ I wonder about the dogfood now. they make those plastic lids for them to. Maybe/.............

Torus34 · Mar 17, 2006

I can't assist in eating the peanut butter, but if you ever want to make a camera out of a wine bottle, please keep me in mind.

photoromopr · Mar 17, 2006

you might have some trouble with the paint in the peanut butter jar (unless its glass), because plastic is flexible, and the paint will crack and let light in, so youll have to be real careful!!! unless you use some kind interior house paint (i noticed they are more flexible). but hey mister wine glass!!! how do you do that??

mysteryscribe · Mar 18, 2006

Im going to go with the plastic jar and use contact cement to cover the inside with a soft black construction paper I think. I got side tracked onto a doggy cam yesterday. Using a dogfood can as a pin hole.

Just in case anyone is interested I learned something from the project. I added a little device I made for polaroid conversions to pin hole. I like to call it a pinholer. It is no more than a pin hole assemply that can be glued to anything to make a camera. Well I had always used the pinhole assemly recessed into a 3/4 inch opening and behind a 3/32 in thick masonite disk.

I got lazy and put the pinhole behind a 1/4 inch opening in the same masonite. I shot the darn thing all day long and got nothing but clear film. I finally gave up. I was in the shower getting the saw dust and fixer off my body when I remembered something from an earlier experiement with pin holes and glass lenses. With them I found that if you set the pin hole aperture too deep in the lens insufficient light reaches the pinhole. I think the same thing happened inside the 1/4 inch hole.

Last night I drilled the pin hole right into the can bottom. Then I cemented (note I do not use the word glue often) a ring of masonite around the drill hole. The ring is to hold the magnetic lens cover/shutter.

I will let you know how it works out.

I have been selling a polaroid conversion cd on ebay for film and chemical money, but eventually that market will dry up. I'm hoping there well be some interest in specialty pinhole cameras. Ie the bow wow pin hole, the green bean pin hole, the pinto bean pinhole. I will just have to wait and see. First I have to master the lil sob. Oh yes let us not forget the coffee can pinhole. The list of junk to make pinholes from is endless.

*AJAX* · Mar 18, 2006

Sandpaper the plastic before painting/spraying (works especially well with spraying) and then the paint has something to grip to :thumbup:

Brilliant idea by the way, were you in the A team by any chance :mrgreen:

mysteryscribe · Mar 19, 2006

Update:
I enlarged the opening back to 3/4 of an inch and the pin hole worked perfectly, but the negative is too small. Inside the dogfood can (ie bow wow cam) the negative had to be about 1.5 x1 1.5 of an inch. It would be okay for me to mess with but too small for anyone else. I'm thinking min size for the novelty cam is 2 3x8 by 2 1/4. that would allow a person to cut a couple of inches off the end of a 120 roll of film. I could make them a cutting jig and they could do it in a dark closet or changing bag. In order to get that size I have to have a can much larger than 2 1/4 inchs in diameter. The reason is there has to be a mask cut for the opening of the container of for the lid. To hold the film in place and flat. Wonder how a film back hung onto a dog food can would look. A film back is easy enough to make. That way you could shoot your pin hole more than once without going into the dark room.

Actually I doubt they would ever be shot anyway. I'm thinking someone would buy them as a gag gift for a digital camera owner. Kind of in your face joke, but I will have to keep looking for the right containers. I have two dogs so the bow wow cam was appealing in that I would have a constant supply of raw materials.

By the way I make a pin hole last night from a plastic polaroid pack film camera I found in a junk shop. I will most likely do a little touch up where the pin holer is cemented on, then I will make a digital photograph and put it on ebay. I made one from a 250 and it sold fine, I made one from a platic rigid camera like this one and it sold. Then I made one from a folding plastic frame 'roid and I still have it. So ebay is a fickle place to sell.

Oh yeah what I think is truly interesting is the number of cheap point and shoot 35mm cameras on the secondary markets (I e junk shops) I bought a vivitar pns with a tripod thread in the bottom. I have already drilled the shutter and old lens out of it. I have to buy a smaller washer, and get back to shooting 35mm again but I'm going to make a pin hole of it.

However the fstop that I can create is only 100. The drill bits I have are for longer focal length cameras ie dog food cans and polaroid.

On the A team thang. Hell the only thing I can make with a swiss army knife is a trip to the emergency room.