BOTY DIY

For the past few years I have had a bit of a thing for thrift store cameras. They are cheap and you don't have to worry about breaking them. Once the flash on my thrift Olympus Trip MD died, I decided I would try to modify it to shoot square and to shoot in a circle. I thought I would post a bit of a how-to like this every now and then. Check it out! - t. reilly hodgson




Okay - so here wo go. This is what you'll need:
(click on the images for larger versions)
1. Epoxy glue. I got the one with a fine-point pen tip style applicator - doing it with a brush or something might be a bit trickier since the areas you glue are so small.
2. A sharp knife
3. Printed/drawn on/ whatever transparencies. You could even maybe try using colored ones. This is what youre going to make the mask for inside your camera with.
4. An old camera. One you don't care about messing up. Old Googly here has served me well for a long time, but the flash recently stopped working and I cant bear to say goodbye just yet, Haha.



Okay, so, I've printed out a transparency with some shapes and stuff on it. If you're going to get a photocopied transparency or draw on it yourself make sure that the toner or ink you use is opaque so that it fully blocks the light from hitting your negative. unless you want to make a camera that puts some weird foggy stuff on your pictures. I've got two circles (positive and negative), a triangle, because we're just so hip and trendy like that here at BOTY, and an optical illusion shape that didn't print properly.



I chose the circle. Mostly only because I messed up the transparency for the triangle when I tried to cut it out. You're going to probably have to do a bit of measuring and stuff before you cut it out - depending on your camera you are going to have different amounts of area you can glue onto, and different advance wheels and things to avoid. Make sure to cut down it down small enough that there isn't any extra flapping around that could jam up or scratch the film that will be sandwiched against it.
After you've got that figured out, epoxy glue the hell out of your camera and stick down your transparency. Don't be as sloppy as me - try to avoid getting all kinds of glue and scratches and fingerprints all over it because these are going to get transferred to your pictures.



Even though I had already tried changing the viewfinder for this camera once before and failed miserably, I decided I would try to put the circle in anyways just because it looks cool.

After thoroughly confusing the people at the 1 hour place with my weird negs, I got my photos back. That first photo is how the prints look. I measured wrong and one side is slightly cropped off, but I dont really care. As you can see from the negatives, I have also modified this camera to shoot square using the same method. I measured wrong, so the photos didnt turn out quite square, but I like the new format.

there's that scratch!




There are a few more on my flickr here - flickr.com/photos/treillyhodgson
So there you have it. Its a pretty simple modification, but I can see there being a whole ton of cool ways to use it! If you try it out send us your photos or if you have an idea for a BOTY DIY feature email us at blood at bloodoftheyoung.com!
Party on!

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