nearly surfacing

The Making of the Pinsco

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 06:10:32 +0000

2 Ansco Shur Shots + 2 Pinholes = 1 Pinsco

That’s about all the math I did for my new pinhole creation. No measuring, no calculating of exposure times, just raw gut instinct (okay, guessing).

You can find out more about my first adventure with a pinhole here. I didn’t want to clutter Holga Blog with the details of how the Pinsco came to be, so I’ll post that here. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me and I’ll help you as much as I can!

The Pinsco is a frankenstein. Part Shur Shot, part Shur Shot Jr, part things I bought at ACE Hardware (brass shims and electrical tape).

Once I realized it would be too much effort to make a 120 pinhole camera from scratch, I decided to work with what I had plenty of: cameras. I pulled apart both the Shur Shot and the Jr before realizing that the simplest solution would be to use parts of both.

I started my adventure with the Shur Shot Jr. I needed a B (bulb) or Time mode, so I not-too-subtly removed the springs that work the shutter. Shortly after I yanked these out, I realized I couldn’t get the interior lens out of the body! So I turned to the Shur Shot…

Here you can see the mechanism of the Shur Shot's Time function

Which is great! Much easier to have a Time function than to rip things apart to create a Time function.

Oh. That makes things difficult. These cameras might be old and cheap, but those lenses are securely attached! After some sitting and sighing and grumbling, I realized that the Jr’s faceplate didn’t have a lens, the Shur Shot’s body didn’t have a lens and the Jr’s film carrier was also lens-free!

Amazingly, the combination worked! The Shur Shot’s film carrier doesn’t quite fit in the Jr, so I was lucky.

Now that the body of the Pinsco was worked out, I had to work out the pinhole bit. The Shur Shot has 3 aperture selections, sunny, cloudy and a yellow filter. You switch between apertures by sliding out the metal lever labeled Diaphragm (you can see this in the close ups above).

The original apertures - I used 1 and 2 for the Pinsco

I bought thin brass shim (0.1″ thick) and cut it into squares that fit over the aperture openings. I used a average-looking needle to make the pinhole for aperture 1 and a thumbtack (push pin) to make aperture 2.

: I colored the brass black (permanent marker) to avoid reflection

I then attached the (tiny) brass rectangles to the aperture lever using glue dots and electrical tape.

pre-electrical taping

Once this was done, I put the Pinsco back together (takes about 10 seconds), loaded it with film, taped it up with electrical tape to avoid light leaks and accidental openings and… voila! Check out Holga Blog for the results of my first roll – needs improvement, but I was pretty pleased. :)

2011!

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 00:58:23 +0000

Fairly new year, all sorts of changes. For one, I’ve lost about 30 lbs since May 2010 – that’s awesome. I am single (as of yesterday – sure, sadface, but moving right along) and ready to kick ass. Pinhole article coming for holgablog at the end of January, one pack of Impossible film purchased and many updates for all of you.

Let’s start out with some news clips that I just have to share:

Cutest abandoned piglet you’ve seen all week: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1346801/Alphie-abandoned-piglet-decides-hes-cats-whiskers.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

You don’t watch Carnivale? Well, you should: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20110115/ARTICLE/101151024/0/news50?p=1&tc=pg&tc=ar

Towards the end – prior to this incident, dude shot himself in the stomach after experiencing chest pains. Gun control? nahh… http://www.fireengineering.com/index/articles/Wire_News_Display/1339379535.html

Of course global warming doesn’t exist… There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for the sun rising 2 days earlier… http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1346936/The-sun-rises-days-early-Greenland-sparking-fears-climate-change-accelerating.html

Welcome back! I’m excited to be here again. Happy 2011, this year is MY year.

st. anthony main

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:38:21 +0000

a couple of months ago, i went to take pictures along the mississippi in minneapolis, in an area known as st. anthony main. the roll from this was unmarked among many other random rolls of 120. here are some of the shots! :)

self portraits

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:36:14 +0000

so way back in the myspace day, i used to take self portraits all the time. i was a typical full-of-myself college student and thought nothing of it. as i aged (and etc), i stopped doing the self portrait thing – i’d just feel silly!

luckily, holgajen wrote an awesome article for holgablog about this very thing. jen takes some amazing self shots… amazing enough to make me want to give a holga self portrait a try.

these are my feeble first results – but now i want more, better shots!

holga + water

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:29:28 +0000

i took my holga canoe camping a couple of times this summer – it held up really well, even after a day of rain. i had scanned a bunch of pictures from these trips earlier, but hadn’t put any online. a bunch are up on flickr, but these are some of my favorites. :)

i don’t know why i love this picture so much

available as a cheap shot on etsy!

beautiful day (check out my crappy battery-taping)

no tape in this shot, but i created a storm cloud during development. :/

world toy camera day!

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:29:42 +0000

for the uninformed, world toy camera day was yesterday (oct 17, 2009). it was a day for toy cam lovers to go out and shoot!

i took my holga cfn (loaded with fuji neopan 400 – my first try with this film). i thought there would be some nice late-afternoon light out, which there was, but the high shrubbery walls at the gardens dulled everything out. i’ll have to go much earlier in the day next time to get some good shadows. :)

here are the pics!

holga randoms

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:05:26 +0000

up until a few months ago, i was terrible at labeling exposed film. i’m still pretty bad about processing often, so this has resulted in a backlog of unlabeled, unprocessed films. recently developed 2 of these unknown rolls – they were both from early spring – summer. :)

drain spout – available as a cheap shot on etsy

elliot park grocery – the somali convenience store across the street.

looking up at a tree – also available as a cheap shot on etsy

pillars and bricks – accidental double exposure of north central bible college and an abandoned building

ummmmm…

night shot of the iconic spoon with a cherry

my solo roadtrip to south dakota

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:36:10 +0000

so back in early august, i went to mount rushmore and back with only taz (my chihuahua) as company. i took my fed 2 camera with me… here’s what i posted on holgablog about the trip:
http://www.holgablog.com/2009/10/15/to-mount-rushmore-and-back-with-a-commie-camera/

while you’re there, you should definitely check out holgablog.com! there’s always something interesting up…

i passed!

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:36:35 +0000

i am now officially veronica walther, esq!

i passed the bar exam! i really needed this…

print giveaway!

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:51:31 +0000

i’ve been having a shitty week. i’m sick, unemployed, broke, my cat has been missing nearly 2 weeks, and i have to move out in about a week (because of the broke thing).

so… i decided to do something to cheer me up – a giveaway! that’s right, cheering up other people always makes me happy… and i’m pretty sure free stuff cheers up most people.

what am i giving away? high quality photo prints!

leave a comment with including your mailing address or a way to get a hold of you (so i can privately get your address) and i will mail you a print (of my choice)! you’ll get either a 5×5″ b/w print or a 4×6″ color print.