CameraMods: Turning a Voigtlander Vito B into a pinhole camera

I originally hoped I could repair the Color Skopar lens on this nice Vito B. I found step-by-step instructions on how to get into the lens assembly.

But the lens cement or the lens itself was indeed cracking.

I decided to remove the rear and front elements (with the diaphragm, etc.) but keep the shutter. It is slow from 1 to 1/25 sec.

I had thoughts of plunking a Polatriplet from a broken Polaroid Pronto B into it just to see what it would do but I stumbled acrossed Chris Keeney's Pinhole Cameras: A DIY Guide.

After leafing through it, I saw the section on sticking pinholes on DSLR and that led to my "why not" moment.

The biggest task was figuring out how to make a lens mount.

I used a dowel that I sized down to twist into the camera's helicoid thread. I made it short enough so that there was no way it would bump into the shutter blades.

I hand-reamed out the dowel until I could see the dowel did not interfere with the film image (just sight the film mask to where the pinhole would be). If you can see that point from the film mask, you're good.

I made the pinhole lens from a very thin piece of scrap brass. I sanded it down. Pinned it with the smallest needle I could find (at midnight with everyone else asleep).

I used a permanent marker to darken the chamber side of the brass.

Then I locked it down with a washer and some screws.

The best piece of info I found in the book was how to determine the size of the pinhole: just scan it. I did so at 9600 pixels per inch.

I cropped to the height and width of the puncture and looked at the image size that remained. Do it in millimetres.

With a bit of calculation, found online (I didn't or couldn't do it myself), you get an f-stop number.

With the focal plane distance and the size of the hole in mm, you get the f-stop.

My pinhole was .3mm. The focal plane, or is it focal length?, is 52mm. It ended up as f/173.3 but I called it f/175.

From there, you can get an exposure guide! Thanks Mr. Pinhole!

I've jotted the info down and now I'm ready to go. Took a couple of hours start to finish.

The dowel sizing was the hardest part.

The camera is loaded with Kodak Gold 200, the same film as this year's Hyack Parade photographs.

Looking forward to seeing if it all works and verifying that the online calculator is correct. I've only taken one shot so far.

I'm using a shutter release cable leading to the Vito B on a tripod BUT it's hard on the hands for long exposures so I'll be clapping the shutter release down in the future. Or something. I'll figure it out.

Have fun out there.