Made with found cardboard tubing, glass lenses, and plastic
Teresa Jiang and I made these cameras in fall 2024 for 4.031 [Design of Objects and Interaction], taught by Marcelo Coelho. Their bodies and handles are bandsawed from a cardboard tube we picked out of the trash, and the remaining modular parts are 3D-printed. Essentially, these cameras allow the user to create long-exposure cyanotype photographs by simply inserting cyanotype "film," pointing the camera at a scene, and letting it sit and expose for several hours. This is an example photo with a six-hour exposure:
The CAD file for these cameras is highly modular. Given a tube of any diameter and length for the body, 3D-printable files can be generated to fit the tube's dimensions and desired lens size. In essence, you can take any piece of tubing from the trash and turn it into a camera!
The "film" is essentially circular pieces of paper soaked in cyanotype liquid. In the back of the camera, there are slots into which film or circular photo masks can be inserted and stored. When not in use, the camera can be held by the handle, akin to a camping thermos.
Inserting film into the back of the camera
Camera stored vertically
In the prototyping process, we tried a ton of different surface finishes, 3D printed form factors, and lens holder tolerances. Here are some of our iterations!
