A few days ago, Stephanie posted the work of a pinhole photographer. I mentioned in a comment that I’d made a pinhole lens for my Nikon D70. So, as she requested, here’s the quick guide to make your own. So let’s get started.

Here’s what you need:

• A body cap
• Something to make a hole in the cap
• Scissors
• Tape
• Needle
• Shim stock or other thin metal
• Piece of wood

Step 1: Put a hole in your lens cap. This hole needs to be somewhat close to center and large enough to allow clearance for the pinhole. I normally use a drill to put a 1/4″ hole.

Step 2: Cut out a piece of shim stock or thin metal. If you don’t have shim stock, a piece of aluminum can works. You can even use alluminum foil if you have to. Use something that is soft enoug to poke a hole through, but won’t bend when making the hole.

Step 3: Poke a hole through the metal piece using the wood as a backstop. The wood helps you from making the hole too large and also keeps the metal flat. The hole size is probably the hardest thing to get right with a pinhole lens. You can find the appropriate measurements online, but I find it’s just easier to poke a hole and try it out. If things are fuzzy, make another one with a smaller hole. Besides, even if you do know the correct size, how are you going to measure it? Do you have pin gauges laying around? Me neither.

Step 4: Tape the metal to the back of the lens cap. Try to line up the hole with the center of the lens cap.

Step 5: Put the cap on your camera and shoot! You’ll have to play around with exposure, but it’s quite easy to figure out with digital cameras. Here’s one I took looking out my patio. Oooo…pinholey.

You can also play around with more than one hole. Here’s one with four holes.

You could always go buy one, but what’s the fun of that? Use this tutorial to make one and save yourself $23!