Re: Polaroid pinhole

I've made a couple of Polaroid pinhole cameras out of
old, plastic body pack film Polaroid cameras I picked
up at thrift stores for about 0.99 US $. The first
one I goofed, and didn't check the film size -- it
took the square film. Oops. After that, I found a
couple of plastic body Polaroids that took the common
peel-apart rectangular film packs (the sx-70 style
Polaroids, which pop the film out automatically, are
more difficult to convert, although several people
have done so).

The next one I removed the shutter and lens assembly
entirely (there were 4 bolts with a very flat 6 sided
head inside the camera -- I used a needle nose pliers
to get them out) taped a pinhole over the front hole,
and used a flap of black masking tape as a shutter.
Works well, although I also had to make a little
triangular stand out of foam core for the bottom so it
would sit up without falling over for long exposures.

The most recent one I did I left the shutter in place,
removed the lens (I can't remember exactly how I got
the lens off -- I may have simply pried it off as
someone else has suggested) and taped a pinhole in
place of the lens. Using the ASA 3000 black & white
Polaroid pack film, this allows hand-held Polaroid
exposures with some adjustment of the light/dark
shutter dial.

Taking apart the Polaroids has been interesting,
compared to other cameras I have dissected. Their
industrial design (how the pieces fit together, how
they're attached, etc.) is simple, ingenious, and very
unlike other cameras, and the automatic shutter is
remarkably simple. Very impressive design and
engineering for "cheap" cameras.

-- pw

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Received on Sat Dec 14 21:50:43 2002