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July 17, 2005
Polaroid + Pinhole = Pinholaroid
I picked up a Polaroid camera for $1 at a garage sale thinking I could add a pinhole and have a pinholaroid. I didn’t find any good online tutorials, and feeling confident after building my digital pinhole camera, I decided to figure it out as I went. Keep reading to learn how to turn a cheap Polaroid camera into a cheap polaroid pinhole camera…
The Polaroid camera I found is a Polaroid Onestep Closeup. This turned out to be an ideal camera to modify because of the closeup feature, as you will see when I explain the shutter system I created.
The first thing you have to do is to pull off the front face to get to the guts of the camera. Be somewhat careful not to break the faceplate because we will be reusing it. Use a blade to pry up a corner and with a little pressure it should snap open.
We won’t need the lens, so simply pop it out. Keep the parts, you never know when you might need them:
You should be able to see how the shutter opens and closes as you push the lever on the left back and forth. Since most Polaroids that use 600 film don’t have batteries (they get power from the film pack) it can be a little hard to tell what you can remove, and what has to stay. My original plan was to use the existing shutter by making a switch with a paperclip. Unfortunately, this won’t work because once the camera gets power, you can’t manually release the shutter. Here is what my first failed attempt looked like:
This worked good in theory, but once the film was added, it started spitting out film. Time for plan B. We need to fool the camera into thinking that the shutter is working normally. That means that you will have to remove the shutter completely. This wasn’t as easy as it would seem. There isn’t anything to unscrew or remove to let you easily remove the shutter. You can’t drill through the shutter because this will lock things up. I used a needle nose pliers to break apart and pull the shutter out. This is probably the hardest part of our Polaroid modification because it is hard to tell if you got all the shutter parts out.
With the shutter out of the way, all we have to do is add a pinhole. I cut a small circle out of a piece of tin from a soda can. Press a needle into the tin, but don’t make a hole. Turn the tin over and sand on the impression from the needle until a small hole appears. Cut a circular piece of black electrical tape, and use it to tape the pinhole where the shutter used to be. I don’t get caught up with measuring my pinholes and calculating focal lengths/apertures/shutter speeds, but there are plenty of online calculators if you want to be more precise. This is what mine looked like:
Now we just need an easy way to cover and uncover our pinhole. You can expect your exposure time to be about 0.5 seconds on a sunny day. That means that we will have to manually open and close the shutter, and we can’t just cover the pinhole with black electrical tape. We need something more efficient. The Onestep Closeup has a unique feature that other polaroids don’t. It has a switch that allows you to take closeup pictures. Pushing the switch pushes a thin lens in front of the main lens. If we cover the closup lens with tape, we can use this as our shutter. Normally, the closeup lens isn’t used, so it is made with a spring that pulls it off. We want to reverse this spring so that by default, the closup lens is covering the pinhole. This modification will allow us to pull the switch to uncover our pinhole, and then it will snap shut. Here is how to do it. Remove the spring and slide the Closeup lens off. Cover the lens with tape. I used aluminum duct tape, but electrical tape should work fine. Next, drill a small hole in the corner opposite of the lens. A bent end of the paperclip will go in this hole for extra strength. The bent paperclip will look like this:
Next, tape the paperclip down and attach the spring to the left. Now our shutter will snap shut. It should look like this:
In order for our new shutter system to work, we will have to remove some plastic. The plastic is relatively soft, so you can easily break it off with a pliers. Don’t use a router or saw, because the bits of plastic will get in the camera and you will never be able to clean it out. Here is a look at the front of the camera after the plastic was removed:
Now all that is left is to snap the faceplate back onto the camera. Here is what it should look like with the shutter open and closed:
Your done. Now you have a cheap pinhole polaroid camera. To prove that it works, here are a couple pictures of flower and my son and his toy truck that I took this morning. These were approximately 0.5 second exposures, and they were hand held. I may have to modify it again to add a tripod mount.
An interesting side note is that our pinhole modification allows this “Closeup” camera to focus even closer up. Since pinhole cameras don’t have a lens, everything is in focus at any distance. By nature pinholes have an infinite depth of field. Any blur that appears is due to the subject moving, the camera moving, or from a pinhole that is too large.
Unfortunately, the film will still cost you a buck a picture. Film is expensive. If you liked this tutorial and want to tackle another Polaroid modification, I also have made a pinhole camera that works with a 545 Polaroid back. For those who don’t know, a 545 takes large 4x5 Polaroid film. That tutorial can be found here.
Posted by Adrian at July 17, 2005 11:04 PM
Comments
I love this idea. I just got my parents' old Spirit 600, with the same idea. It doesn't have the close-up lens, but I think I can rig something up. My only question is: how do you control exposure time?
Posted by: Jamie at October 9, 2005 5:16 PM
Bruce had posted some questions about 'why pinhole' and there were some referrals to other artists. One was Abelardo Morrel. I may be wrong, but I thought he mainly was known for his view camera inside a camera obscura room work...not strictly pinhole photos, but very cool stuff regardless.
Some other stuff to look at follows. Also visit f295.tompersinger.com.
Nick from St Petersburg, Russia
http://f295.tompersinger.com/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b=CP,m=1124181790
http://f295.tompersinger.com/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b=CP,m=1124345271
http://f295.tompersinger.com/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b=CP,m=1128070333
My own image
http://f295.tompersinger.com/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b=cc,m=1132988400
Ralph Young's site
http://www.pbase.com/rwyoung/pinhole_photo
Posted by: Murray at December 22, 2005 11:58 PM
um, i'm having some trouble - i got the entire shutter out and reversed the mechanism for the close-up and broke off the plastic and everything but it's still shooting continuously. even with the face plate on, when i start to stick in the film cartridge it goes crazy... i pull it out every time because i don't want to waste the film, will it stop on its own once it's in? or am i doing something else wrong? thanks for your help
Posted by: allison at April 13, 2006 12:22 PM
Allison,
Sorry to hear you are having trouble with your Polaroid. One thing to keep in mind is that when you stick the film in, it spits out the sheet of black plastic that is covering the film. Once it spits that one sheet out, it should stop. If it keeps going after that, then something is wrong. If that is the case, I don't think I can help you without looking at it. I hope that helps!
Posted by: Adrian Hanft at April 13, 2006 1:56 PM
OK, I had same problem with A.F.E. (automatic filmpack evacuation).
Egyptian Pharonic method of shutter removal was lucky for Mr Blog here (Adrian?). I removed all the material I could reach, and experienced the dreaded A.F.E.
I opened it up further, and found that in MY case, about 80% of the shutter was still inside, mangled & possiblty interfering with that metal weight/pendulum. I'm not sure, but I think the weight has something to do with the shutter speed AND contacts the eject contacts upon return to 'home' position.
Well, the swinging metal weight is now a paperweight on my desk because one of the plastic pins it rotates on broke, as did a couple locking tabs after 2 or 3 repeat assembly-disassembly cycles.
I should probably quit while I'm ahead, as my last conversion attempt fell out of the car & got run over. I'm determined not to let a Polaroid 635CL win this battle (too late, I'm 0 for 2), so I think what remains to be done is solve the A.F.E. syndrome (the empty pack is still good for detecting the A.F.E. impulse as long as the battery holds out). I'm thinking insulating tape and a momentary switch.
Posted by: Murray at May 2, 2006 1:37 PM
Hello there, thanx for this tutorial, I got a Polaroid at home, but I don't understand the concept of pinholes cameras, does this cameras works with film? what kind of film?
Please help me.
(sorry my english it sucks)
thanx!
Posted by: armando at May 19, 2006 11:38 AM
Hello there, thanx for this tutorial, I got a Polaroid at home, but I don't understand the concept of pinholes cameras, does this cameras works with film? what kind of film?
Please help me.
(sorry my english it sucks)
thanx!
Posted by: armando at May 19, 2006 11:54 AM
Armando,
Thanks. The pinhole just replaces the lens, it doesn't affect the film mechanism. The Polaroid camera I described takes Poloaroid 600 film. You can buy it almost anywhere, but it pretty expensive (about 1$ per picture. That is the downside of doing pinhole, since you have a greater chance of messing up! Thanks again. Hope that helps.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 19, 2006 12:09 PM
How do I insert a film in a Polaroid 600?
Posted by: Pearl at June 18, 2006 4:34 PM
couldn't you just replace that lens with the piece of tin and keep the shutter intact?
just wondering
Posted by: jeff at July 30, 2006 11:58 AM
i was successful with your polaroid 600 mod, although i damaged the mirror inside a little. i've just done a test shot and it's working! now if i can find another polaroid 600 business edition...
you can read more about it here:
http://www.f295.org/Pinholeforum/forum/Blah.pl?m-1117465467/s-15/#num20
Posted by: matt at August 9, 2006 10:34 PM
Hi, I got exactly the same model of polaroid i have as you. However, when i bought it, i was too excited too check if it is working or not (Whether the shutter opens or shut at the press of lever). DO you know how to go about repairing it. You see, the main problem is that, the depressing or releasing the lever does not open or close the shutter. I have to open up the fron to make it close and open. Any help?
Posted by: Peili at September 15, 2006 5:22 AM
Peili, I think you might be in luck. I don't think it is broken. I think the shutter doesn't fire without film in it. That is because the camera gets power from the pack of Polaroid film. Without film in the camera is the equivelent of not having batteries. I hope that is the problem! Good luck.
Posted by: Adrian at September 15, 2006 7:20 PM
Shoebox pinholaroid...
on an impulse i decided to buy some P' 600 when i was at walmart, i figured it'd be easier to do, considering i didnt have any access to chemicals for regular film,
1st try i didnt realize there was chemicals in the bottom,
2nd try, i used a rolling pin to spread it out, then i realized that there is 3 different pouches for the chems, do they need to come out in a specific order?
Posted by: Josh at October 9, 2006 5:39 PM
I used to work for Polaroid as an engineer on the production line of the 600 shutter.
Regarding why the shutter won't fire without a film pack. The shutter uses an electric solenoid to control the opening along with an inertia weight and walking beam set up. Without the electrical supply from the pack the solenoid will not operate and, thus, the shutter will not fire.
You can use a pack that has no film left as a way to test the shutter and experiment without wasting film. However, once the battery in the pack dies it will be of no further use. Alternatively, a DC supply could be rigged through an empty pack, with battery pod removed, to facilitate testing. This is similar to how the cameras are powered in the factory during production. Sorry, I can't remember the voltage required. You should be able to find this on the net somewhere.
Regarding shutter control. It should be possible to trick the camera to keep the shutter open for an extended, timed period. The exposure is measued through to coloured lenses at the fron of the shutter assembly. The green one measures ambient light and the red/black one measures IR light from the strobe to better balance the exposure. I'm not 100% sure about this but controlling the light flow to these lenses should afford some control over the shutter speed. In front of the lenses is a perspex filter with a vaied grid of black stripes. This is called the Trimslide and is used by the user to fine tune the calibration of the exposure. Fitting ND filters over this may allow extended exposures. Worth experimenting with.
I once built a pinhole out of a Polaroid Spectra
(also known as the 7000) Pro, the clamshell type. This had the ability to set a shutter speed manually, up to 2 minutes.
spec here [url]http://www.polaroid.com/service/userguides/photographic/spectra_pro_ug.pdf[/url]
The only change required was to insert a pinhole in place of the meniscus lens (rear lens) and removng the objective lens at the front. Watch out for ESD damage to the flec circuits,however , and take great care because of the strobe capacitor.
HTH
Posted by: tricky at November 20, 2006 6:32 AM
Could some one explain me where the hell, the battery is placed and how would it be replaced?
Sincerely
Miguel Elizondo
Mty, Mex.
Posted by: Miguel at January 18, 2007 10:36 AM
The battery is in the film pack, not in the camera. The camera gets power from the film pack, so without film in the camera it won't work.
Posted by: Adrian at January 18, 2007 11:00 AM
I have a Joycam from Polaroid, it takes 500 instant film. Have you tried to mod that into a pinhole camera yet? If not, where do you think I should start if I try to do it? Thanks for any suggestions, and great blog!
Cheers,
Cecelia
Posted by: Cecelia at March 12, 2007 3:32 PM
Cecilia, No, I haven't had the pleasure of playing with a Joycam. Some cameras are easier to modify than others, so without knowing too much about this model it is hard to say what the best strategy would be. Thanks, and good luck!
Posted by: Adrian Hanft at March 14, 2007 10:10 PM
I thought this was such a great idea, I actually just finished making one myself to try it out. I used one of the newer polaroids, using 600 film, it had the closeup lens on it as well.
Posted by: Jeff Lockett at March 22, 2007 7:32 PM
I didn't quite get how you get the film to pop out after you've made your manual exposure because you've dismantled the regular shutter that triggers the film release. Can you simply cover up the pinhole and hit the regular shutter button to eject the film?
Posted by: Erin at May 1, 2007 6:34 AM
My shutter (One Step Close Up) does not appear to open, but is that because I have not inserted a film pack into the camera? Does the shutter only engage with a film pack?
thanks so much,
Jeff
Montreal
Posted by: Jeff at May 8, 2007 8:50 PM
i tried this with the 635CL supercolor model, but removing the shutter from outside is nearly impossible. however, you can remove another piece of plastic and just take it out. just insert a screwdriver in the crack over the lens and lift it up. the shutter thing (metal + spring will fall apart, but thats easy to put back.)
and here is a pic that shows, how big the shutter parts are! and they are not easy to tear off with a plier. i sat for an hour just fiddling around and if you look at the photo you can see that i just removed a tiny part.
http://e600.betise.org/public/shutter.png
Posted by: lop at July 21, 2007 5:21 AM
I have started to modify my 636 closeup polaroid camera to convert it into a pinholaroid (I am certain that this is the exact same model as a OneStep closeup polaroid - just named differently). I am experiencing the same problem as others - when tested with an empty film pack, the mechanism will not stop trying to eject "film" (this problem was dubbed above as A.F.E!!!)
When removing the shutters from the camera I had to move the front 'piece' of plastic that contains the 'lead up' area to the shutters and protects the mechanisms that operate the shutter (the 'plate' of plastic directly behind the face that was removed in step #1). When replacing the parts that had shifted around, I believe that there is something that I have missed, which is causing the A.F.E.
Has anyone been able to rectify this problem? If Anyone out there can help me and let me know why this is happening it would be great if you can let me know how to return the camera to its original state so that i can fit a pinhole and shoot some photos! I was so happy when I finally got the parts back to their 'supposed' original state then devastated when the camera continued to perform its A.F.E manouvre!!
can anyone HELP ???
Posted by: Phil at July 27, 2007 8:09 AM
I converted my old 636 Closeup into a pinholaroid, but instead of pulling out the shutters and modifying the close-up lens I just took out the lens, put the metal with the hole in it in front of the shutters and covered the light sensor with black electrical tape.
This of course fixes the exposure time at 0.5 seconds which requires quite a bit of light to make a good picture, but the conversion is quick, easy and reversible, and the camera works just like a standard Polaroid camera.
Click here for picture examples.
Posted by: dnv at October 11, 2007 8:55 AM
hey. i just wanted to ask if... The power for camera, all comes from a new flim package?////THANKS YOUS!!
Posted by: naasty at November 19, 2007 7:58 PM
I had an old closeup Polaroid so I decided to try this out. I followed everything step by step. It all works great except for when I push the button to take the picture..It doesn't take. I'm not sure if it was just the camera or what. Any ideas on what went wrong? Thanks.
Posted by: Meg at January 9, 2008 12:34 AM
It is possible, to remove the shutter-blades completely. My english is not good enough to explain, let my do in in german:
Nach dem Entfernen der vorderen Abdeckblende (front face) muss die Abdeckung über dem Filmfach entfernt werden (look at picture pinholaroid6.jpg under your finger). Dazu müssen vier Nasen gelöst werden, zwei im Filmfach rechts und links aussen und zwei an der Oberseite wo der Blitz sich dreht. Dann laesst sich das komplette Plastikteil nach vorne abziehen, Vorsicht beim Ausloeser, er wird von einer Feder auch aussen gedrueckt.
Danach kann die Halterung des Objektivs entfernt werden. Auch hier müssen wieder Nasen gelöst werden: Die erste Nase ist im animierten GIF zu sehen: Links neben dem oberen beweglichen Gewicht. Die zweite Nase sitzt zwischen Objektiv und Sucher, die dritte befindet sich an der unteren Kante, genau unter der ersten Nase, die vierte befindet sich unter der zweiten Nase und die letzte ist am unteren Rand ganz rechts.
Vorsicht beim Abnehmen: Das bewegliche Gewicht kommt von alleine heraus, bitte die Position für den Einbau merken!. Als letztes muß noch das Einstellrand für die Belichtungssteuerung entfernt werden.
Danach kann die komplette Halterung des Objektiv entfernt werden. Darunter sitzen die Blaetter des Verschlusses.
Der Zusammenbau geschieht in reverse order.
Good luck
Bernd
P.S. My Camera is already complete and it still works.
Posted by: Bernd Franzen at January 30, 2008 12:37 PM
I have a Polariod 'Spirit 600 CL', and have had no problems with it up until now- the flash won't load when I pull the face up but there is definately still film in the camera.
Posted by: Holly at April 27, 2008 8:35 PM