Build a Pinhole Camera – A Collaboration With Patrick Elder

First pictures of the camera I designed. I realised swiftly that having no sort of woodworking knowledge it would be best if I commissioned someone else to build it! That someone was Patrick Elder, my father-in-law. He’s a Sculptor, and his work can be found at http://www.patrickelder.com.  I gave him the ‘plans’ that I drew up and basically gave him creative freedom to do what he wanted with the design, as long as the dimensions that I gave were adhered to. Still early stages yet, there is no back at the moment, and no design for a shutter for the front of the camera. The slots are in for the 6×6 mask and the edges are there for the 6×9. These dividers will not be removable, they dont need to be unlike the 6×6. The edges of the dividers have been made as smooth as possible, as the film will roll over the and I do not want them to scratch the film. In a regular camera they are quite often metal roller, but I wanted as much of this as possible to be made from scratch, rather than cannibalising other cameras, and I also wanted as much of it as possible to be wooden.

That being said I did have a metal tripod mount machined into the bottom. It needs the ability to be tripod mounted otherwise it would be pretty much useless really, and taking one out of a scrap camera was much easier than attempting to make one.