Happy Little Mac Pinhole Camera

Step 6 Create your lens.

I created a pinhole lens using a piece of aluminum flashing and an old lens cap. Drill a large hole into the lens cap. Cut a piece of flashing so that it will fit into the lens cap. Look carefully at the picture. The lens cap is epoxied on the front of the matteboard for a clean look.

Also create a lens cap (cover) to use as a shutter. I just used a circular piece of matteboard and some blue masking tape.

To make a pinhole in the flashing... Use a #7 or 8 needle (or any other really small diameter needle and stick the back end of it into the eraser of a pencil. Now you can use the pencil (with the needle) to carefully drill a hole into the flashing. The object here is to make as clean a hole as possible. Drill until the needle just barely pokes through the aluminum. then use some 800 grit sandpaper to sand the rough edges around the hole down. Then flip the aluminum over and drill the other side. Sand the rough edges around the hole. Eventually, the needle will be completely through the flashing and the hole will be perfectly smooth. If you put the flashing down on a scanner, you can blow up the image and see that a perfect circle has been formed.

There are many internet resources on how to create a pinhole for a pinhole camera...

Here are some general pinhole camera resources to get you started.