diy paper pinhole camera

My friend in London sent me this DIY paper pinhole camera kit a few weeks ago, and I’ve only recently gotten around to assembling it. After realising that a plain old glue stick wasn’t going to cut it, despite the camera being made from ‘just paper’, a tube of multigrip glue was purchased to make sure that this camera was going to be super solid. As a camera building novice, I did have some hair-tearing-out moments thanks to a few instructions that were open to interpretation but as you can see I got the job done in the end. All that’s left now is to load it with film and test it out! Anyone got any tips for using a pinhole camera?
For those interested, this DIY camera kit was purchased from Urban Outfitters.

27 thoughts on “diy paper pinhole camera

  1. i remember making one at college years ago, we had to stay so still to take photographs. i remember people kept walking past so we have blurs all over it. nice one

  2. Wow that's such a cool idea and cute design! Good luck with using it, I gather they can be quite fiddly but with a bit of patience and experimentation I'm sure you'll master it! Hope you'll post some of your results 🙂 ox

    simplesophie.com

  3. Woahh, this brings back memories of my photography class where we made one of these – although mine was nowhere near as cute. It's been so long so I don't have many tips but I remember setting mine down on a park bench/on the ground and getting some pretty sharp shots out of it.

  4. This is super super super cool! I'd love to know how this thing works, and I am really looking forward to the results. And a huge congratulations of having the patience to put it together – a notable achievement I'd say!

    1. Building it actually ended up being a bit of a crash course in learning how cameras work haha. Pinhole cameras are basically just long exposure cameras so using it will be an interesting experience.

  5. This is so cool, can't wait to see the results! My photographer housemate had to make pinhole cameras out of everything for her course (including fruit and beer cans!) so I will have to show her this one 🙂

    swansandlists.blogspot.co.uk

  6. Hahahah! This camera is so pretty and I am sure that it hides hard work! I really like those pictures with the world map background, so colorful!
    XOX

    leslistesdolive.blogspot.ca

  7. I'm so glad you liked it! I was tempted to buy one for myself too to add to my growing camera collection but after hearing how hard it was to put together. I think i'll just wait. Plus i'm pretty sure if you take your lens of your diana its a pinhole right? I may have made that up. Either way good luck with the photos! Can't wait to see them!

    1. 'sif I wouldn't like it silly! In hindsight it's actually quite doable. It's just the fiddly bits that get a bit tricky. A few more pictures in the instructions wouldn't go astray though. My Diana Mini doesn't have detachable lenses, but I think that may be the case for your normal one (or at least, you can get pinhole attachments yadda yadda). We can hijack the group Skype sesh tomorrow lol.

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