You may know Clint O’Connor from such crowdfunding projects as “Pinhole, Printed”, from 2013. Well, Clint is back, and he has a new 3D printed pinhole camera that you can make with your 3D printer. Like his Flyer 6×6 and Clipper 6×18 cameras, Clint designed this new camera from head to toe.
Clint O’Connor’s offbeat Kickstarter campaign in 2013 was funded in less than 14 hours, and sold out in 20 days. 210 Flyer 6×6 cameras were shipped out, and Clint moved on to design and deliver the Clipper 6×18, which was a stretch goal commitment. Modeled after a wooden 6×16 camera, the clipper was the first 3D printed panoramic camera with a curved backplane. Now, Clint has created something much easier. So easy, in fact, that it’s called “Easy 35” camera.
Clint had an idea that sprung from a need for a super-compact camera that could be inexpensively reproduced on a 3D printer, with as few parts as possible. His idea is that the new camera would appeal to both pinhole photographers and teachers who want an inexpensive way to explain the basics of photography. The Easy 35 uses 35mm film, which allows it to be so small, and it can be printed twice as fast as the Flyer 6×6 and only needs a pinhole to assemble. Black tape is used as the shutter, and a rubber band keeps the top on top.
The body of the camera is a single 3D printed component that integrates film chambers, baffles, rails, internal light and the pinhole mount. The design of this mini-wonder is only possible to fabricate by 3D printing; conventional manufacturing techniques would make it nearly impossible. It can be printed in either PLA and ABS, you can make a pinhole with foil and a needle or buy one for cheap to be glued in or held in place by an O-ring.
The Easy 35 camera is open source, released under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0 license. This just means that anyone can make and sell them; you just have to give attribution to the designer. The Easy 35 camera is available on pinshape.com, youmagine.com, and thingiverse.com.
Clint had a long career with Dell, has a BA in physics, and took electrical engineering coursework at MIT, and has 35 US and 9 international patents to his name (so far). If you are in New Mexico and want to see the Flyer 6×6 and Clipper 6×18 cameras for yourself, they are on display at the Poetics of Light exhibition until January 2016 at the New Mexico History Museum.
