RE: Making a portable 4x8 feet pinhole camera

> Guy Glorieux, Friday, May 02, 2008 wrote:
>
> I am working on designing and building a 4 x 8 feet pinhole
> camera
> which I will be using in about a month time for a project here in
> Montreal.
> I'd be happy to hear if anybody has experience in this area.
  <clip>

Guy, this is a delightfully wonderful and crazy idea. I don't have direct
experience making a camera like you're describing, but here are a couple of
thoughts that might help.

1/4-inch plywood is not light-tight. You'd have to use something to make it
opaque, like lining the wall with plastic black-out from Porter's Camera or
finding a thick paint or something similar. This is a link showing the
first Ice Shanty Obscura that Chip Lindberg made. The squares above his
head in the photo are pop can pinholes mounted on thin plywood. From inside
the shanty, the plywood glowed. Chip made some excellent photos in this
house, including several 360-degree panoramas.
http://www.pinhole.com/archive/415

This is Chip's second shanty obscura. The MN Center for Photography and I
'rented' the shanty from Chip to conduct a public pinhole photo-making event
on ice last January. This shanty is made of panels of extruded polystyrene
fastened together. To make it light-tight, Chip covered the inside with
black vinyl-coated fabric.
http://www.f295.org/Pinholeforum/forum/Blah.pl?b-local/m-1201759280/

My main point is that you'll have to do something to make the plywood walls
light-tight. Neither of Chip's ice shanty designs is easy to move, which is
one of your main criteria. On the other hand, Montreal is on the same
latitude as the Twin Cities, and my guess is that there would be places
nearby that manufacture or sell portable ice fishing shanties. You may be
able to incorporate some of their design ideas and knowledge into your
camera, especially what they do for ease of setup and light-weight materials
for portability.

> Regards to all
> and congratulations for WPPD 2008 to the organizers and the
> participants.
> A fantastic success

Thank you, Guy. You were one of the founders of this amazing event, and you
built a strong foundation for your successors.

Tom
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Received on Sat May 3 17:18:11 2008