Juice Box Pinhole Camera

Remember those juice boxes from when you were a kid?
Well, aside from containing some of the tastiest beverages known to humankind, they now have an ulterior purpose.
Ladies n' Gents, I present the Juice Box Pinhole Camera.

(Note: Credit is deserved where credit is due-- I based much of my plans off of this website. I changed some things around, most notably the matchbox to a juice box, to fit what was laying around the house.)

I was recently doing an article for my school newspaper about the Glasgow twee-pop band Camera Obscura. My editor wanted me to do a side assignment researching camera obscuras, so I poked around and I eventually came up with this design.
Now, granted, pinhole cameras, especially those of this caliber, are not designed to take beautiful Ansel Adams-esque panoramic masterpieces. Since there is no lens, the focal range of said camera is terribly small. (I'll go into greater detail about what are ideal conditions for pictures and all that later.)
But, hey, they're fun and creative. If you're looking for a good rainy-day photography project, this is it.

This is also my first Instructable, so bear with me. If you've got any questions, I'll answer 'em.

Step 1 Ingredients

Hokay!
So we need to gather our stuff before we get started.

We need:
--A Juice Box (I chose Yoo-Hoo because it's oh-so tasty)
--Black Electrical Tape (A lot of it. Not red nor green nor camo-colored. Needs to be non-translucent.)
--Film (I've experimented with color the previous times I've made the camera, so I thought I'd give 100 speed Kodak T-Max a go this time. Anything slow, like 200 or 100 ISO, is optimal. But, by all means, experiment!)
--Empty Film Reel (Ask your friendly neighborhood Walgreen's employee for one of these. They've got bunches of them. Make sure a bit of film is still sticking out of the reel!)
--A Metric Ruler (or a standard ruler and a Master's in mathematics)
--An X-Acto Knife (Be F'in CAREFUL. I am not responsible for anything you accidentally do to yourself with it.)
--A Pen or a skinny Sharpie (dry-ink ballpoints don't write well on juice boxes, use something felt tip or wet ink.)

Also,
--Aluminum Beverage Canister (Like, a soda can. Or beer, perhaps. Either, really.)
--Cardboard (Perhaps packaging for said canister?)

It might be good to have these too, although I didn't picture them:
--Scissors (If you're really afraid of X-Acto knives like me)
--Tweezers (They tweeze. Hence, the name.)
--Scotch Tape (Made from real Scots!)

Comments

[kaikoi]

Soo, the film I got is 36mm, would there be a problem in that? Also, my ISO is 400 (O.O). Wanted to know if it would still work… And is there anything else I can use to replace the empty film canister? Because where I live there are very few camera places and they are far away (btw I live in Brazil)
Thanks, I would be happy if you could respond :)

[commentnlookr]

coolol! mine works,but how come my photos come upside-down?

[Tokoloshe]

When you project something through a pinhole it turns the image upside down. Just turn your photo the other way round :P

[rrrmanion]

Quit Tweezing us and get on with the Instructable! sorry, but i had to use that pun, just because i could.

[Eldarodo]

Great instructable but all the reflective surfaces should be darkened

[nfornicoley]

This is awesome. I want to do this. Tell me, how did you go about developing the film without a scanner? That's where I think I'm going to get stuck. I'd greatly appreciate it if you can let me know.

[oatmealfight]

uhhhh, film is never developed with a scanner. Maybe you're using the wrong term. Take the roll of film to Walgreens or CVS or whatever and ask them to develop the negatives from the roll, but don't make prints. Then take the negatives and scan them in on a scanner. Make sense?

[jimmy joe]

how long should i wait after taking picture to take another

[jakestah1601]

I am with him, how many tomes do we spin it? some one said 2.5 full rotations. what did you use?

[oatmealfight]

It's a shot in the dark. The design on which I based this off of used a piece of plastic binding comb (you know, like the plastic binding used to keep together reports or whatever) to rub against the rebate (the perforated edge on 35mm film). The idea is that this clicking gives you some sort of reference of how far you've advanced the film.
X amount of clicks while winding= an exposure? Go for it. I've never done this but it sounds pretty effective.

[thx0138]

Vintage Vinyl is awesome.

[oatmealfight]

Concurred! Very much so.

[Admiral Puffinfresh]

Maybe you could attach a motor to the film reel and turn it into a juice box video camera hahaha. =]

[aceLED]

can you make a camera with one film canister instead

[-_-]

how many times should i turn the key for each new exposure?

[Razboz]

I may have fallen in love with your jacket.

[NinJA999]

This is cool, I will attempt to make one. Please, though, update the link to the matchbox camera: http://alspix.blog.co.uk/2005/12/31/matchbox_pinhole~428481

[oatmealfight]

Ah, good eyes! I didn't catch that one. Thanks!

[NinJA999]

no problem--it wasn't too hard to find the real link, but I figured I would make it easier for you.

[mindtrip]

how long should i expose the film (one photo) and how would i know when to stop unwinding the reel for a new shot? these are probably dumb questions, but i'm highly curious.

[oatmealfight]

The photo exposure is totally dependent on how much light is in your surrounding. Unlike regular cameras that have f-stops and things, you only have one way to control the image- how long it's exposed. So just mess around with it. Mess ups are awesome too.

[pixbytrix]

How about an adult juice box?! Ever made a camera with a wine box? Now just think of all of the fun you'd have emptying the box first! You might just say the heck with making the camera. Or think of how all of that adult juice would inspire photo taking : )

[oatmealfight]

Oh my...using a box of Franzia or something to that sort would only lead to great things.
Alcohol + photography - inhibitions = awesome.

[roban]

Good project. Just a quick correction: you said the "focal range" of a pinhole camera is terrible because it has no lens. Actually, the depth of field (meaning roughly the range of distances over which a particular lens configuration can focus reasonably well) for a pinhole is infinite. You can take pictures of things either very close to the camera or at infinity without having to refocus. That's one of the really cool things about them.

[skullbadge]

Nifty as it may be; it's not a Camera Obscura. You need projection for this. But it does remind me of how I got my one and only badge in cub scouts. That was a happy day. And, can't you just tape the thing to a stable object to remove any shake, or is that the point of art?

[oatmealfight]

Oy Vey! I thought a camera obscura WAS a pinhole camera. Perhaps find a way to use a mirror inside the juice box? I suppose you could tape it to the table. Hadn't thought of that, makes sense. But never underestimate the power of shaky hands! Art is dead and Juice Box cameras further kill it.

[ongissim]

Nice Instructable! How good quality pictures does it give, though?

[oatmealfight]

Thanks. Well, quality is subjective. Like I said, don't expect to be Ansel Adams or something. They definitely have a lo-fi feel like a Holga or a Lomo camera. Expect vignetting, blurs, shakiness, and all around weird looking things not typically found in a real lens camera. But- I find all the "errors" and "problems" with the exposures to be 90% of the fun of pinhole photography. The other ten percent is drinking the Yoo-Hoo, of course.

[ongissim]

I've made my own pinhole cameras out of oatmeal boxes and styrofoam cups, and they don't give that good quality pictures either. Also, what is the approximate exposure time? I would guess about .7 - 1.3 seconds.

[oatmealfight]

I used 7 second exposures, actually, and they came out pretty well. I guess this mostly depends on how much light there is, anyway, so give it a go. Mess around, make mistakes!