Making a Pinhole Camera

Did you ever think you could take pictures with a cardboard box? Meet the pinhole camera, one of the most basic iterations of a camera, that, believe it or not, is easy to make, use, and most importantly, still comes out with great images! Follow along to learn how to make your very own pinhole camera and in turn, gain a deeper understanding of the conventions of photography and appreciation for the art form.

- Cardboard

- Black and white film paper (we used Ilford brand, 5 x 7 inch, Pearl finish)

- Aluminum foil

- Pin needle

- Black paint

- Scissors

- Black electrical tape

- Hot glue gun & hot glue

- Laser cutter

- Adobe Illustrator

- Film development chemicals (Developer, stop bath, fixer)

The first step to creating a pinhole camera is to first create a design that is light-tight but still functional. Light-tightness is imperative to the creation of a pinhole cameras as any open crevices will prematurely expose the film, leading to an impaired and sometimes defective image. Of course, the camera still has to be functional despite the light-tightness, meaning it must still have a capability for loading and removing film, in addition to opening and closing the camera "shutter."

Given these restrictions, we opted to create a twofold design for our camera with a "base" camera and a "top" camera. Both would be 5-sided boxes, with the "base" being slightly smaller and missing a top with the "top" being slightly larger and missing a bottom. The base would hold the film/photo paper while the top, equipped with the "shutter", would then cover the base. This would allow the user to load and reload film while also creating a twofold light-tightness. Additionally, for our "shutter", we decided to create what we named a "sliding door" by adding two slim rectangle strips of cardboard horizontally from one another to hold one larger, wider strip of cardboard in the middle -- under this larger strip would be the camera's pinhole, and the user could slide the shutter open to create an image, then close to regain light-tightness prior to developing.

Once we had our design down pat, we then needed to create the Illustrator file for the camera, as the laser cutter cuts from Illustrator files. Thankfully, there are tons of free templates online that can be used to create boxes! We used makeabox.io to create ours. Because we were using 5 x 7 inch photo paper, we put these dimensions in for our base box so that the paper would fit in perfectly without needing additional fasteners to stay put. We then created an additional file for the top of the box, this one about .5 inches larger, so that the base would fit in snugly.

Once the file is created in makeabox.io, both files should be opened in Illustrator. Here, a circle of the same size needs to be added to one of the bases in both the "Base" and "Top" files, as this will be cut out by the Laser Cutter later on for the pinhole. Depending on the laser cutter you are using, it is likely the case once in Illustrator that the file will need to be in vector form rather than raster form, in order to truly cut through the cardboard, rather than just etch on top. In our case to achieve this, the stroke thickness of each line had to be made equal to .072 pt (or .001 inches) in Illustrator, and the color had to be converted to one of the RGB colors that the laser cutter can see -- in our case, we used red.

The most tedious part of the process is over! Now, it's time to laser cut.

Bring your file to the Laser Cutter and place a large piece of cardboard in the bed. It is likely the case that you will have to laser cut different sections of the design at different times, as the cardboard is only so large. Adjust the power and speed settings of the laser cutter accordingly to ensure the laser cuts through the cardboard fully. If there are some places the laser doesn't cut fully through, go back carefully with a boxcutter or Xacto knife to sharpen up those edges.

Now that the camera pieces have been laser cut, it's time to assemble the camera using a hot glue gun. Before assembling, we found it helpful to paint one side of each piece black, as these would then be assembled to form the interior, just to ensure light-tightness. Assembly is a pretty straightforward process, but does tend to require an extra pair of hands. We simply hot glued each piece of our top and base together, one at a time.

Next, it's time to create the pinhole, which essentially acts as the "lens," as the light comes through the tiny hole to expose the photo paper located inside the camera. For this, simply take a small sheet of aluminum foil and poke a pin-sized hole in the center. Then, tape that sheet of foil to the inside of the camera around where the circle is located. Next, you will want to make the inside of the camera extra light tight by taping the black electrical tape to the edges, just to be extra safe!

Your camera is now ready to take pictures!

Now that the camera is all put together, it's time to take photos!

First, load your photo paper into the camera while inside a darkroom. Loading it anywhere else will cause the photo paper to expose prematurely, ruining your image. Then, be sure that your shutter is fully closed, again to ensure the photo paper isn't prematurely exposed.

Next, go outside, or wherever you are hoping to shoot photos, to start taking your photos. (In our experience, outdoor photos turned out a lot better than indoor photos, given the abundance of good, natural lighting!) t It will definitely take some experimenting and trial and error as to how long to hold your shutter open and how far back to place your camera, but in our experience, we had pretty good results with about a 20 second shutter opening on a sunny day and a square-on stance to our subject, as our camera's 5 x 7 dimensions combined with the 5 x 7 photo paper made for a pretty standard lens focus and depth of field. (But, every camera will be different.) Make sure your subject stays as still as possible, unless you want any movement/blur in the image. As soon as your image is exposed, be sure to close the shutter tight, again to avoid any light leaks.

Bring your camera back into the darkroom where you will unload the photo paper -- again, do not do this anywhere other than the darkroom, as it will expose your photo prematurely! Once you've unloaded your photo paper, guide it through the film development process, using tongs in each respective chemical and for the allotted amount of time to develop your image. In our case, this was developer liquid first, stop bath second, fixer last, and finished off with a water rinse. You will then likely want to squeegee off any residue, and place the photo on the drying rack.

This resulting image will be a negative rather than a traditional photo, but you can easily invert the negative in digital software to see what the image really looks like.

You've now taken your first photo with just a cardboard box!!!!