Pinhole “Polaroid” Instax Mini- the easiest way to shoot pinhole photography!

This post serves two purposes. First as a shameless plug for my product, and second as a how-to for the easiest to use pinhole camera ever! 

Pinhole photography is fantastic. It takes you back to the core elements of photography- light drawing at it’s most basic. No lens. Just a hole in a dark box. A shutter is as simple as a piece of tape or cardboard and shutter speed based on the photographer counting- one one thousand two one thousand…

The prior step and the next step are where things have the possibility of being a bit complicated. First, you need to load the negative or light-sensitive paper. You will need a completely dark room or a changing bag. After exposing the shot, you will need the changing bag again, and you will need to transfer it into a light-tight tank for processing. Adjusting for the type of film, you will have to take it through a cycle of the developer, stop, and fix. If you are shooting color, it can also be pretty challenging to develop the film. Upon finishing the development, you need to either scan it or develop prints from the negative in the darkroom.

Now imagine you can skip all that. All you have to remember is one one thousand, two one thousand part. This is where instant pinhole photography comes in. No darkroom, no changing bag, no chemicals.

I have made a shutter for the Instax Mini. It is attached with two screws without modification to the exterior of the camera body. The gate style shutter is just slid along with your fingertips. The pinhole can be used as I made it or swapped out for a pinhole of your choice.

If you choose not to use my shutter, making a shutter yourself is easy! Just cut out cardboard, thin wood, or plastic to cover the lens area and drill a hole or use a hole punch in the middle. Lay it aside for now.

Cut a nickel or quarter-sized piece of thin metal (you can use thin roof flashing or thick foil, but I used brass shim metal). Put the metal on softwood or thick cardboard as a backing and pierce the metal with a needle. This is a bit easier said than done. It is easier to handle and drive the needle through the metal if you take a wine cork and push the needle’s back into it all the way so a half-inch is sticking out. When you pierce the metal, just pierce with the tip. You need a tiny hole so it is best to err on the side of caution. Once you have pierced the metal, it is helpful but not necessary to sand the hole with 1200 or higher grit sandpaper. If you sand it, go back and forth and re-round the hole with the needle. The goal is to have the pierced area as thin as the metal around it.

Tape the metal to the backside of the cardboard with the pinhole in the center. Cover the back or front of your cardboard with black electrical tape or paint it black with acrylic paint. Take a piece of electric tape and lay it across the pinhole. When you peel up part of the tape exposing the hole the shutter is open. When you tape it back down the shutter is closed. This is the simplest pinhole shutter.

Here is where it can get scary, but don’t be scared. Now you need to gut your Instax camera. I will start with caution, and if you heed my warning everything will go fine. This tip applies to any and all cameras with built-in flashes! The Instax camera will have a large capacitor. This will dump lots of power all at once. It can zap and sting you bad, or even kill you if you have a weak heart or heart related conditions. There are three easy workarounds. The first one(the one I used for years!) is to avoid touching the leads and hope you get lucky. Obviously this workaround is not great. The second workaround is to short out the cap by bridging the two leads with an insulated screwdriver. This will dump all the energy instantly, but it will make an alarming pop and spark! The third is to make or buy a capacitor drainer. I bought one on eBay from someone who makes them. It takes a few minutes to drain, but it is the easiest of all routes. If this is the only camera you intend to build, I would go the insulated screwdriver route. It may spook you for a second, and that isn’t so bad!

Open the case by removing visible screws. You don’t need to remove the screws in the battery compartment, but you do need to take off the battery door. Gently pry the case apart, releasing tiny tabs all around. Disable and remove the capacitor. Now that you have removed the danger, just remove everything else! Start with the lens parts, then the circuit boards. Leave as much wire as possible coming from the shutter button, the battery, and the motor. Remove all other electronics. If you are using my shutter, Dremel down the black cone so there is clearance for the shutter. You will probably only have to remove 5mm or ¼ inch. If you are not using my shutter, you don’t have to Dremel anything.

You are ready for wiring. It is a simple circuit. It goes: battery to negative line(black) to switch(yellow)out of switch(yellow) to motor(green) out of motor(blue) to battery(red). I interrupted the negative side of the circuit with the switch, but you could do it on the positive side. If you get your wires to the motor backward, it will just run in reverse. This is just about the simplest circuit ever, and all you have to do is hold down the momentary switch for it to engage the motor. You can practice on old film re-loaded into a cartridge, but you will be comfortable with it within moments or seconds of use.

Now mount my shutter with two screws or tape your homemade shutter on. If you choose, you can silver out the flash window with a silver sharpie from the backside or you can leave it like it is. You can also take the original lens front ring and glue it on for looks, or dress it out any way you like! Reassemble the camera with the 7 tiny screws. Use electric tape, gorilla tape, or any black light-tight tape, and tape from the back of the shutter to the film opening edge, careful to allow full view to the film.

You are now done and ready to shoot. Load your batteries and film and get to shooting! I count off seconds, but you can use a watch hand or phone. My shutter can take 2 to 3 seconds in the shade, or less than a second in bright daylight. Keep in mind that Instax film is very sensitive(800 iso). In order to keep it simple and fun, write off your first pack of film to “dialing it in”. This is something that you can only do with instant film! With standard analog film you may use the whole first roll bracketing, and develop and print a contact sheet or scan the film before you know what you have. If you want to get more complex than the simple and fun experimental way, you can scan your pinhole and measure it using photo software like Photoshop, and then put it in a free program like pinhole designer. There you will get your f-stop and comparable time conversions for a standard light meter.

There are a ton of resources. This is just meant to be an introduction to get you started, but there are many more specific instructions than this out there. Also, both of these shutters can be added to any light-tight box to make a camera if Instax doesn’t float your boat! Happy shooting!

The white balance in these example shots is pretty bad. The images are not this blue!

Polaroid automatic to manual conversion part two- a quick fix for the DIY addict!

Three years ago I blogged about my conversion of an automatic pack-film camera to a fully manual setup(check out this blog entry for a more thorough how-to: http://www.lofianddiy.com/2016/10/polaroid-conversion-my-messy-manual.html ). It was my first attempt. I was pleased with the results, as it was a camera with personality. It looked like the Frankenstein it was-, a combination of several camera parts with junkyard appeal. In an effort to thin the herd, I sold this lovely little junker. The new owner sent me some great pictures that he shot with the camera. I was proud and glad that the camera gave another joy like it had me.

But I missed that camera. I could toss it in a bag with little regard for its safety( so different from the way I treat my 195). There was also a connection to the fact that I had put my own personal touch to it. I had modified it- tricked it out- like some rat rod car.

I kept busy with other conversions: Two 110 to pack film conversions (http://www.lofianddiy.com/2018/10/late-to-party-or-polaroid-110a.html) and a successful Polaroid Spectra to Acmel Forensics transplant operation later(http://www.lofianddiy.com/2019/03/crazy-space-shuttle-forensics-acmel.html), and I wanted to have another go at the automatic to manual conversion. I recently bought a small lot of pack film(very expired fp100c) and they threw in a poorly constructed junk conversion from a tired 100 body with bellows that looked like swiss cheese and a lovely 127mm Rodenstock-Ysarex lens.

Tinkering is an addiction, and I have been jonesing for this project. As an added motivation, I will not get to shoot with my 195 for three months. It is on display with a third of my collection in a show about collections in the Kennedy Museum of Art. So I took the lovely lens off of the junk conversion and dumped the rest into a parts bin.

This time, I set about with an aesthetic vision. I still wanted the steampunk rat rod look, but a bit more refined and unified than my first attempt. This one would be shiny metal and black, to go with the lovely lens I lucked into. In the three years since I blogged about my last manual conversion, I have cleaned, tested, enhanced, and sold a couple hundred cameras. This has given me a parts graveyard that would likely be the envy of any Polaroid geek.

I built this new camera on the foundation of a Polaroid 250 Automatic. I swapped out the bellows with a nice black one( for information on how to swap bellows see http://www.lofianddiy.com/2017/01/polaroid-packfilm-bellows-transplant.html ) and added a full view Zeiss-Icon viewfinder. Most Zeiss-Icon viewfinders have a tiny viewing port, but there were some 250s that had a larger viewing port for people who wear glasses. I attached a Polaroid #128 timer to the back with permanent double-sided craft tape. You will note that I put it on the right-hand side as you look at the back. My first-timer was mounted on the left side and stuck out against my face when I used the viewfinder- live and learn! I added a cold shoe that I took off a flash bracket with a combination of screws and liquid weld. I gutted the front standard and mounted the 127 lens. In addition to being a very sharp lens that was originally from the Polaroid 110a roll film camera, this lens has the added benefit of the accessories designed for the 110a, like closeup diopters +1, 2, and 4, as well as a yellow filter, polarizer, and a hood!

But the most drastic change was the grip I built into the frame of the camera. Since I no longer needed batteries for my camera, I took off the battery door and the built-in plastic hand grip. A little dremeling later, and I mounted a handgrip from the flash bracket I salvaged. Then I made a custom cover for the whole package out of an automatic 450 cover. The 450 cover is designed for the Zeiss-Icon viewfinder and has the added benefit of a cutout for a cold shoe. I dremeled and folded it so the handgrip would still be accessible even when the cover is closed. I made the cover form fit the new lens by putting on the accessory yellow filter to protect the lens, and slowly coaxing the cover to the shape while getting the cover hot with a heat gun. This is scary, but if you take your time it will work very well. I chose the yellow filter knowing that if I hurt it I would not be too disappointed, but there was no damage to the filter and the camera itself wasn’t even warm. I let it sit for an hour fully clipped in place to make sure it would not return to its original shape.

I found a nice and simple Honeywell flash in black and chrome, and after a bit of cleaning the contacts with an eraser head, it fired up the capacitor quickly. It took me a lot longer to find the proprietary flash cable, though. Thank goodness for my camera salvage! I really wanted it to have the Polaroid #628 light meter, but I didn’t want to use the one from my 195 kit. I have a few broken 628s, so I set about fixing one. This was probably the most time-consuming part! I just took it apart a dozen times tweaking this and that until it was fixed. By the way, this method can work for all kinds of stuff ( The only caveat is that you have to watch out for high voltage capacitors, as they can release deadly energy.).

I am really pleased with the results. Not too polished, but quite the looker. It is also the most ergonomic pack film camera I own, and my new favorite...until my next fix!

Wall hanger to Appalachian dulcimer, or Murphy’s revenge: A not-so-easy DIY project.

Like many D.I.Y. types, my life is full of partial projects and false starts. Life has a way of pushing aside my funky inventions and crazy expressions in exchange for more practical concerns. Sometimes I just want to feel the pride and contentment that come with a finished project, however easily the victory is gained.
I was sure a tired old mountain dulcimer was to be my salvation from a summer of starts with no end. I spotted this sad thing at a flea market buried in a pile of stuff. My dream of cheap discovery was borne out that day. I pointed at the tired wall-hanger instrument poking out, sadly smothered in white house paint. It was one tiny step from the bin, and no one would have noticed the loss. The vendor gleefully took my five dollars and handed over the instrument.
Unpacking my treasures at home, I began to hatch a plan. I would do a short and sweet blog showcasing this instrument-turned-wall-hanger-turned-instrument. The decorative piece had chalky white latex smeared lazily all over its surface, streaks of wood finish peeking through the mess. It had the frets removed, and had long since given up its tuners. My blog would show me removing the paint, re-fretting the fingerboard, mounting new tuners and strings, and showcasing the final rescue. I would do it all with stuff available in my house, a true five-dollar dulcimer!

Suffice it to say, that is not how things turned out.

The first step was easy enough. Having stripped enough wood with chemicals and heat, I knew it could be done. I decided to try something different I had seen in a blog but never employed. I soaked a rag with alcohol and slowly rubbed at the house paint. To my surprise, this time it worked and worked well! I was able to bring it to the original finish without damaging the wood or creating a mess! In the spirit of my DIY aesthetic, I left some white paint. I want my repairs to be part of the journey of this instrument, so to erase the time it spent as a wall hanger would be a disservice(think Wabi Sabi- the acceptance of transience and imperfection) . I wrote a blog about this aesthetic and how it plays into my philosophy: http://www.lofianddiy.com/2016/10/the-diy-aesthetic-how-we-can-still.html .

OK- next to re-fret it. This should be easy, as the fret grooves were clean and without chips. I managed to get all the paint out as well. Here is where the trouble started. I could not get any frets to take. I have bags of salvaged frets that work great in projects and bags of pre-cut frets that are brand new. Everything I tried would either never set, or pop out quite easily.

At first, I blamed the frets for being slightly radiused. Surely that was it! I tested the radiused fret in a nearby chunk of wood and it worked perfectly, flat or not. Still, just in case, I tried lots of flat frets. No go. I figured maybe it was the way I was setting the frets. I usually use a flat fret caul I purchased from Stew-Mac hooked in my drill press, so I tried the old fashioned way- a ball-pein hammer. It spit out frets like crazy, some popping out minutes later.



It was becoming very clear why this little mountain dulcimer was slathered in house paint. The wood was cursed, never to accept a fret, never to sing out- doomed to the decorator’s dustbin. Resigned to accept that this would be a much longer project, I hatched a plan that bypassed the difficult surface entirely. I would glue a different fretboard right over this one- an antique yardstick from the Arlington Elevator Supply Company.

Yardsticks don’t make good fretboards. I already have this work-based knowledge. They say the definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result. Guilty as charged. Despite a terrible fretting experience with a ruler fret-board in the past, I was sure to try again!



You see, give away branded products like pens, buttons, and yardsticks are not going to be made with the best materials. The yardsticks are usually made of soft and cheap pine. Some are so poorly made that they warp and stretch, giving terrible measurements and becoming useless as a straight edge.

As a consummate collector of all things useless, I have been shopping for antique rulers that are not soft and are perfectly straight. The lesson the last yardstick was trying to teach was not to use a yardstick, but I wouldn’t listen. I would see the barrels of yardsticks in the antique malls of Ohio and give them a pinch. If my fingernail dented them, I would pass. Very few passed my test.

After ignoring my fears, I hand cut the fret slots, sanded the mating surfaces, glued, and clamped on the yardstick. I then used a cabinet scraper to plane the yardstick to the edge of the old fingerboard. Once I trimmed the excess yardstick and cut out the nut and bridge slots, I was ready for fretting! A side note about the fretting- not all fret calculators are made the same. I wasted a lot of time looking for something that would print a new template based on the unique scale length of this old homemade instrument. In the dirty dark old corners of the internet, I was able to re-find a tool that I used to use to get unique frettings: wfret. Not only did this tool help me get the right positions, but it showed me that the original fret positions were sloppy at best! Though fretting went largely without incident, leveling the frets was a bit of a challenge. With softer woods, you have to be careful not to overshoot the surface when hammering the frets in place. In the end, I erred on the side of caution and just gently tuned and tapped any fret buzz out once stringed.








I knew I would not waste a second on friction pegs, tradition or not! I looked in my little luthier room(guitar graveyard) and picked some thru post mechanical tuners that looked particularly terrible/awesome. The yellowed patina on the tuner knobs combined with just the right amount of rust would look so good on this instrument! Using a technique I did on a fiddle years ago, I Dremel cut off the 3rd tuner from each side and ground the end to look stock. After some simple drilling, these slid right in place. OK, now I am getting my stride back!








I ditched the original nut and bridge, opting for the bright and clear ring of cow-bone. Shaping bone is pretty easy on a power sander, and when I got it shaped I used a tiny file to cut the grooves in it. FYI, bone stinks when you sand it- try for adequate ventilation when you sand it. Or be like me and learn nothing over time. The rest of the day I smelled burning hair, a reminder of my stupidity.

Downhill from here. I strung it with banjo string and touched up the frets. It sounds lovely to me( and yes- that is all that matters), and is a funky Appalachian mountain dulcimer brought back to life in the foothills of the Appalachians!













I could not have hoped for more. A project that was supposed to be an easy one-off ended up being quite challenging, but the reward has already been great. My dear friend of 20 years, Paul, helped me kill a cheap bottle of Old Dan Tucker(10 buck watered-down whiskey for the unordained) on the rocks while passing and playing the dulcimer for hours on my shady front porch. It gives me a feeling of pride and contentment just thinking about it!

Shooting 600 with your 600, or Mamiya Universal Press and Polaroid 600SE get a CB-70 back!

Remember, the CB-70 prints backward!

The Polaroid 600SE and Mamiya Universal Press are wonderful cameras of another age. Born in the 60s, and revamped for Polaroid in 1978, the Mamiya Universal Press has to be looked at in a different context in the post-digital era.

In the eighties and nineties, cameras were about features and portability. The 35mm SLR in all its forms was king. Designed with a complexity that rivaled the finest clocks and watches, they were engineering marvels.

When the dust settled after digital blew up photography, the remaining analog film buffs and new film aficionados made up a new society of photographers that looked nothing like the 90s version. The new value system gave a higher roll to medium and large format photography. Ancient versions of photography that had been all but forgotten, like wet plate collodion, saw a tremendous resurgence. Instant photography, which arguably is closest to digital in its nature, started to represent a much bigger proportion of analog photography’s comeback than the ubiquitous 35mm camera.

I don’t profess to know why things have shaken down the way they have, but I think it has a lot to do with the medium shifting from a consumer/ professional product to an artsy, niche product. As an artist, I see all manner of ancient reproduction media only in use by artists. One of my favorite media to work in is intaglio printmaking(think plates etched like the drawings on the dollar bill). There is no logical reason to still make intaglio prints- that technology was surpassed years ago. But some things aren’t about logic.

The popular cameras of today, from the revival of most of the Polaroid cameras, the explosion of Instax cameras, the re-issue of Diana and Holga cameras, to the resurgence of boxy press cameras like the Mamiya Universal and Graflex Speed Graphic is arguably popular because they are low tech and simple. As artists and creatives, we like understanding our equipment and manipulating our images in very direct ways.

As such, many of us have taken to combining different camera parts to create whole new cameras! Polaroid conversions will combine pack film camera bodies with fully manual lenses, while there is a whole industry around converting Polaroid 110 roll film cameras to pack film and Instax Wide backs.

Arguably one of the most sought after conversions is adding a CB-70 back to your Mamiya Universal or Polaroid 600SE. It immediately makes your camera capable of shooting Polaroid 600 and Polaroid SX-70 film! I recently designed and started making the back to adapt the CB-70 directly to the camera with no more than a dollar tube of glue.

This is all you will need!

This may be the shortest tutorial I will give because the process is so simple. I print the backs in either horizontal or vertical orientation. Vertical orientation has traditionally been the most popular, but I really like the way horizontal looks. The board is designed to exactly match up with the cutouts on the CB-70. Once you dry fit your board to the CB-70, prep your board by masking over the wires and take up hook. Before you glue, test your CB-70 for functionality.

You can opt out of covering your wiring, but do cover the take-up hook when you glue it!

Line it up carefully and press it together.

In the past I have used Fix-All Adhesive Super Glue Gel I got from the dollar tree, and it worked perfectly. Do not use a runny glue, or it can drip into the cavities, making your back inoperable. I put a heavy bead of it all around the CB-70 photo window, then smoothed it down with my finger(don’t do that- it is probably toxic!). When pressing it together, I used a q tip to remove the excess that squeezed out the sides. I then let it cure for 24 hours. Though it is strong enough to use after 24 hours, it is not fully cured for about a week(sadly you will smell it!).

Note: After it had fully cured I wanted to see how strong the bond was. I pried as hard as I could short of ripping it in half and the bond held! In the end, the only way to remove it was to carefully slip a super sharp utility knife in all around and even that took the better part of a half an hour! As you can tell, I highly recommend going this route.

Done!

The final touch is you can paint the edge of the film frame with a small bottle of black craft paint so there won’t be any light leaks. If you don’t have any black paint, you can use black electric tape.

Now get out there and shoot!

PS, Please read my blog on opening up the interior of your camera- you don’t have to, but it is easy: http://www.lofianddiy.com/2019/01/giving-your-polaroid-600se-super-powers.html
PPS, My  CB-70 to Mamiya Universal Press or Polaroid 600SE are available here: https://www.ebay.com/str/appalachianfleamarket

MUP and Goose get an update, or shooting Instax Mini and wide with your Polaroid 600SE and Mamiya Universal Press!

Shooting Instax Wide with Lo-Fi 4x5 back.

Up until now, I have not featured any of my products in my blog entries. Since I am starting to create things that cannot be found any other way, I decided to change that. I will still be using this platform to talk about my smaller projects while rolling in some exciting micro-manufactory items. Anyone who knows me knows that I place a great deal of value on the one-off, the handcrafted. As a sculptor and a painter, I still get a thrill seeing the hand of the artist molded into the very essence of a piece. As a wheel throwing ceramicist, however, I understand directly the roll even rudimentary technology can play in making.

Collecting, rehabilitating, and even selling some instant cameras have been a source of joy for me since I got my first Polaroid camera in a junk bin five years ago. I have since branched out to creating parts for cameras, many with a 3-d printer.

This entry is about two of them. Back in 2016, I did a blog entry where I put Instax Mini instant film into the film carrier of a 2x3 Graflex Speed Graphic camera. You can find the link here: http://www.lofianddiy.com/2016/09/its-aliiive-orspeed-graphics-instax-mini.html . You can refer to some specifics on how that is done by reading that blog entry. Today I would like to introduce some new products I have been 3D printing and assembling and test them out with the Instax Mini and Wide film!

I am currently making cut film backs for the Mamiya Universal Press and Polaroid 600SE cameras. If you follow me on my blog you will see that I have lots of love for the famous/ ugly-beautiful Goose(600se). This love has extended to a growing collection of the extremely versatile and wonderful Mamiya Press line. I am now making 4x5 and 2x3 Mamiya Universal Press and Polaroid 600SE adapters that allow you to use your Graflex style 2x3 and 4x5 cut film holders. These holders just lock onto the back of your camera like any other adapters, with the film plane already dialed in at the exact distance. I currently sell these adapters here: https://www.ebay.com/str/appalachianfleamarket .

Shooting Instax Mini with Lo-Fi 2x3 back.

The steps are, basically, the same as I wrote about in my earlier blog, but there are some things I have since learned which make your life easier. When using the Instax Mini film, you need to put a pack of the film(already peeled from the foil) and your 2x3 film holders in the changing bag. If you are doing a pack of film, you will need 5 film holders. The rest you will do blind. The first and second time doing this will take lots of time, but by the third time, it will be easy and smooth sailing! Your first time doing this, it would be a good idea to practice with some pre-exposed film in the light. Fuji film shoots through the film instead of onto the film, so the side you see with a picture on it is the back side.

In the changing bag, run the film out of the holder one by one, slipping it out the open end. Be careful not to put pressure on the pod(on the leading end) as it can break and create a mess. Now slip one of the film holders’ dark slide out a few inches. The end of the holder will now fold down. Gently slide the film, pod first, into the opening, careful to make sure it is feeding into the film guides. Orientation is paramount at this stage. You should feel that you are sliding the picture side(smooth side) against the metal plate, and the raised pod and raised ridge side should be facing out. Once the film reaches the stop, press the folded end down tightly and push the dark slide back in. It usually fits tight, and in the case of some packs, it may need a little force. Once you have put the dark slide in, close the lock(usually in the form of a simple bent metal bar) so you can remember which one you have done. Now do the same with the rest of the holders.

Now simply shoot as you would with the regular film. Be careful, though, as this is a highly sensitive film(800asa).

Unload the film in reverse of your loading steps in a changing bag. Slip each piece of film back into the Instax cartridge, ending with the dark slide. Look at the dark slide orientation in the light so you can understand what you are feeling in the dark. Once everything is put back in, take the cartridge out of the changing bag and load an Instax camera. Since the Instax camera is just being used to process the film, put your hand or electric tape over the lens and shoot all of the film out of the pack.

Within a minute, you will have fully developed images you took with your Mamiya/Polaroid camera!

If you have my 4x5 film back, just go thru the same steps. The only difference is you will have to get good at navigating the changing bag! Though 4x5 fits nicely into the holder with zero cropping, the film guides will not touch the image. Here is the extra step: Put a roll of scotch tape in the bag when you transfer the film. Entirely by feel, tear off and tape the film centered on the metal plate under the dark slide. I put tape on the leading and trailing edge(not the pod and ridge). Then close it up as before. Once you have done this a few times it will become easy.

There are pros and cons to each size. With the Instax Mini, it is really easy to slip the film in, and easy to slip the film out. The dark slide, however, feels a bit forced and tight and can cause mild light leaks on the end of the carrier. With the Instax Wide film, there are no evident light leaks caused by the film, and the dark slide slips easily in and out. The downside is that when you are new to it, taping the film on can be tedious and difficult!

Make no mistake- using instant film this way is anything but instant! But it does save you from wet developing your own or sending it away. I, for one, really enjoyed this process and am going to be ordering more carriers!