orionid

The "Brownholio" Anamorphic Pinhole Camera.

So, this is what I spent my day off today (Friday) doing.

I started with an old Kodak Brownie Target Six-20. I liked it, but it didn't get enough use as is. Not crappy enough for lomography, not near as high quality as some of my other film cameras, so it was usually relegated to extreme sprocket hole panoramas on 35mm.

So, I voided the warranty, as I tend to do sometimes.

First, I started with the "brains" of the camera. The film plane.... errr... cylinder.



Before painting, I sanded the surfaces that were going to be painted or glued with 200 grit to help adhesion. I masked off the areas where the film would be sliding to keep it smooth, then put on one coat of plastic primer and three coats of flat black.

Next, I carved out a spot for it in the inner sidewall of the brownie. I had to get a little creative with metal bending and shaping to work around the pre-existing design.



Then I rearranged the location of the roller bars to hold the film against the cylinder, and tested the fit.




Once everything fit right and a few other minor tweaks were taken care of, I covered over the old red window, made a new red window to align to the 12-shot numbers (using only the even frames), and made a pinhole and sliding shutter out of 5-mil brass. Lastly, and most importantly, I ran a test roll through just walking around the farm.

First light: