Big Shot- big time, or swapping out that anemic development timer.

I tend toward the experimental with photography, but one area that I am a bit of a purist on is shooting pack film with my Polaroid Big Shot. I let the Magicube do its magic. I do the Polaroid shuffle to focus the camera (it is a fixed focus with a rangefinder to lock in focus). I do “no-frills” portraits of head and torso. I pinch straight down on the shutter lever all the way to the bottom of the motion. I even use the terrible development timer on the back of the camera. Until now!

About a third of my Polaroid camera collection is sitting pretty in an art museum in a collection show. Since I tried to represent important and interesting cameras, my Big Shot had to be a part of that display. I did not realize how much I would miss that collection until it was gone(and the show is 3 months long). This forced some change in my workflow. First, I built another manual pack film camera out of stuff I had lying around. I blogged about it here: http://www.lofianddiy.com/2019/09/polaroid-automatic-to-manual-conversion.html . And second, I dug into my parts bin and put together/ cleaned up a Big Shot. You see, I take a Big Shot picture of everyone who comes into my art studio, and I could not bear to miss out on a whole season of pictures.

The camera worked well, but the terrible timer kept stalling! Though I love the Big Shot, I acknowledge that it wasn’t built of the best stuff. Most of the Big shots I encounter have broken shutter lever posts, missing t handles, chips on the body, out of true rangefinders, and of course, anemic development timers.

Looking at the outside and inside of the film door, a removal and replacement operation looked to be quite easy. Many things that look easy can be time-consuming and hard, but this is not one of them. I did the project in minutes and it was as easy as it looked.

Polaroid had a few standalone development timers that could be mounted to your camera strap(model 128) or screwed into your tripod socket(model 120). There have been others, but those are the ones that I have found to be fairly common. You can also find timers on old plastic pack film cameras, but I have no experience using them. I chose to use the oldest, a model 120 because the build quality is excellent and it can be calibrated from the back with a standard screwdriver.

The first step is to remove the existing timer. I just pried it up with a knife and it broke along the glue line. I then used a sharp knife to scrape away the excess pieces. When you are done with this step, you will have a hole too small for either timer. Do not try to widen the hole to fit the timer, as you will end up opening a hole clear through the back.

The timer will sit flush with the surface, covering the hole, but not sitting in the hole. I chose to use industrial-grade Velcro. It served the dual purpose of filling the hole and allowing for removal of the timer for calibration. I used strong Velcro because the adhesive side of it is super strong and will not fall off. Lesser Velcro will just eventually fall off. If you use the 120 timers, there are three tiny screws to remove on the back so you can get rid of the tripod screw plate.

Project done, workflow restored!

Mamiya Universal Press and Polaroid 600SE CB-70 back update- Shooting on the cheap with i-Type film!

Versatility is important to me. I think that may stem from a past of scarcity. I live in Appalachia in the poorest county of Ohio, so that may play a part. Growing up Generation X, the first generation that could not count on getting a career, but rather stringing together jobs over a lifetime, could contribute to my values. Being an artist in a country that only celebrates millionaire artists may play a role in my feelings of lack.

But I like to think that my attitude comes from all of those campy post-apocalyptic 80s movies that the cold war brought us. Huddling in the bunker after the blast with my trusty Polaroid 600SE, I have to seek new and innovative means to shoot the varied and dwindling supply of a lost era. I will create adapters, backs, lenses, etc. to continue recording my passage through this life. I will use expired film, and process with coffee and vitamin c. I will combine various parts to create a working object. I will create hacks and shortcuts, some clever, many silly.

This is one of those hacks. Though I have created adapters that allow you to connect your CB-70 back to the Mamiya Universal Press and Polaroid 600SE in both horizontal and vertical orientation (https://www.ebay.com/str/appalachianfleamarket ), this hack will work with all CB-70 film backs.

In a world of scarcity, Polaroid Originals provides the film for the 600 cameras, the SX-70 cameras, and i-Type cameras. If you have a fresh 600 film or fresh SX-70 film, you can process them through the CB-70 back. If you wish to use i-Type film or film with a dead battery, there is an easy and cheap fix to add to your camera bag that will allow you to process with your CB-70 back as well!




6-8 volts can drive your CB-70 motor. There just happens to be an electrical socket on the backside of your CB-70. It runs on dc, so a two cr123 battery holder with the batteries arranged in series( in a line with one positive touching the other negative) will work to supply all your power needs. You will have to find a power plug of the correct dimensions. An easy way to find one is to just take the back to a thrift store and try all of them out. Remember, it doesn’t matter the power of the brick or the polarity of the plug at this stage. You will be using the wire and the plug, not the transformer. The dimension of the exterior of the adapter I used is 5mm, with the inner diameter of 2.1- 2.5(sorry I cannot be more specific!).






Once you have found your power plug, wire the positive to the exterior of the plug and the negative to the interior of the plug. This is the opposite of most power plugs, so be careful not to do the industry standard. Now test it. Get an i-type cartridge with a couple of old shots in it, or tape over the power connector on an old expired cartridge with a couple of shots left. Remember to always tape over the power contacts on the bottom of old film cartridges if you intend to use the cr123s instead. The contacts, even if dead, can create a drain in the circuit. Plug it in, and quickly press the green eject button. If you don’t hear and see an ejected picture, you may have it miswired. If no film came out, quickly unplug it and check your connections.



Now attach the battery holder to your CB-70 any way you like. I am going to attack mine with velcro and toss the holder into my camera bag! You are now ready for the apocalypse!

Getting that freshly Photo-shopped look, or making a twelve dollar “Polaroid Lab” for your SLR 680 or SX-70 instant camera.

When I make art I often look for the path of most resistance. It is not intentional, it is just part of my process that emerges consistently. For example- the idea starts simply enough: Paintings generated from photographic images of homes in my community. Then it becomes more complicated. Paintings generated from photographic images of abandoned homes in my community. Then, paintings generated from photographic images of abandoned homes in my community at night. And, paintings generated from photographic images of abandoned homes in remote areas of my community at night with little natural or artificial light. At this point I find myself standing in the dark, cold, abandoned streets freezing from shooting five-minute exposures all night and explaining to the police that I have done nothing illegal. Did I mention that my canvases were six by six foot? I can never do things the easy way.

One of my projects involved me taking a digital image and manipulating it only to record it on instant film. The project called the Dollhouse series needed the intimacy of a Polaroid format combined with the perceived legitimacy of the medium( a photo never lies!). This would be a breeze if I could use an Impossible Instant Lab or even the new Polaroid Lab, but I did not have the additional 200 plus dollars nor the requisite I-Phone(not to mention, I hate the idea of tethering the lab to another product-the cell phone- that has a fairly short usable life). I have a lot of old Polaroid oscilloscope cameras, and one of these would be perfect, except I really wanted to try the idea on the iconic SX-70 border and not the Fuji pack film style.

I set about looking for a solution, and this is what I came up with: the Kalimar copy stand. I hacked the Kalimar copy stand (generally found as new old stock on eBay) with a Dremel tool, pliers, and adhesive-backed craft foam. The end result is a stand that you slip into place on the front of your SLR-680 or SX-70. The camera balances squarely on the stand with the SLR 680, which you set directly on a tablet, or possibly a phone. With the flash turned off and using a shutter release cable, you focus the camera and take the shot! The stand comes with the enlarging copy lens built-in, but you will likely need filters to avoid the strong blue cast caused by an LED screen. I taped on a strong yellow filter and that did the trick.

So how did I do the mod? It was quite easy. Describing it is harder. Since I already had the camera and cable release, the whole project set me back 12 dollars! I started with the Kalimar Kali- Copier for the Polaroid ColorPack II camera. There are other Kali Copiers, but this one lines up perfectly with the lens and sensor on the camera.

When I did this originally, I spent a lot of hours cutting and measuring stuff, but if you print my simple template you will save time. 

Once you have cut the template out of light card-stock or an index card, lay it across the camera side of the stand, folding the sides to follow the metal tabs on the stand. Using a silver or colored sharpie, trace the template. Remove the lens from the stand and set it aside.

Now take your Dremel style tool and a good metal cutting blade and cut away the excess metal. This is the fun part- lots of bright sparks showering to the side of your work! Tip: when I traced with a silver sharpie it gave me a fat line. In order to be accurate, I cut away all of the silver right up to the black. Be careful to wear safety glasses, and support both the stand and your Dremel firmly. I adjusted my rpm to only 3000 and took my time.

Please take note from the photos that I did some cutting that was not on the template. Parts of the lens housing have to be cut back, as well. Be careful to only cut away what I have shown. Any more could weaken the stand. Follow the Dremel work with filing all of the raw edges that you created.

Now take your template and trace it onto a piece of adhesive-backed craft foam. This can typically be found in the children’s section of a craft store. I chose black, but you can do it in any color. The purpose of the foam is to protect your camera from scratches( I learned this the hard way!). Put the craft foam in place, covering every part of the stand’s camera cradle with the foam.

The final steps to building the stand require bending. This metal is not quite light enough to bend easily with your fingers, so I suggest using needle-nose pliers. Study my photos showing the slight bends outwards and up, and also hold your camera to the side of the stand. The hole should line up with the exposure window, and the cutout on the side should line up with the shutter release. Once I got everything bent and it slipped into place, I put an extra bit of bend at the top of the tab that didn’t have the cutout. This acts as a grip for the front of the camera. Once you have set it in the stand in its correct position, look at the shutter button and remove the foam that would press against it. Just cut out that small section so you don’t accidentally trigger the shutter button with the foam.

An area you may or may not decide to bend is the base of the stand. I chose to do it so it sits flatter. I pinched the part that allows you to slip pictures in to copy, as I wanted it to be flat and padded. I added craft foam to the surface so the screen I would be setting it on would be protected(I use my “instant lab” with a tablet), as well as to avoid touch screen activation with the metal.

Use is simple. Open the camera, turn off or remove the flash, mount the camera on the stand, plug in the remote shutter release cable, lift the camera and stand onto the tablet, then focus the shot.

This stand pictured here is my second one. I really think the template and instructions should make this a very easy project for anyone. There is one downside, though. You may get addicted to cutting things with a Dremel cutting wheel!

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!