Despite working very long hours each day (typically 14~16 hours), I sometimes find myself sitting around with a considerable amount of time to kill. Yesterday and today were no exceptions.

I had an empty "Pocari Sweat" sports drink can, a can opener, a sewing kit, scissors, some cardstock, and a black magic marker. Yes, all there in the truck by chance, and not assembled for any special purpose.

I shifted into McGyver mode and decided to see what I could do with the can. I found that cutting the bottom off, removing the top, and placing it over a 105mm lens made a very nice vignette effect. I noticed that the open bottom of the can fit very neatly around the outside edge of the lens mount on the camera body, and wondered if I could make a pinhole attachment out of the can.

First efforts were with pin-pricked aluminum foil placed over the open top. A dismal failure, mostly due to internal reflections from the shiny innards of the can. My initial attempt to kill the reflections by painting the inside black with the magic marker didn't work, as it was too glossy. I ended up cutting cardboard to fit around the fat portion of the body, the narrow portion of the neck, and inside the cap. I colored that all black with the marker and that was enough to kill most of the reflections most of the time. It would probably be better to actually flock the inside with some flat black paint.

I think the attachment worked out to somewhere around 150mm. I'm guessing the diameter of the pin was maybe 3/4 of a mm. So that probably works out to about f200 or somewhere around there. All I know is it was damned near impossible to see anything through the viewfinder. I know there must be more optimal lengths and pinhole diameters, and I'm positive there are tricks to forming the hole for maximum sharpness....but I was just working with what I had at hand. The whole shebang was just held to the front of the camera body by two or three short strips of cellophane tape.






All the dark spots are, as best I can figure, the specks of dust on my sensor.

[deadwolfbones]

Well, given the rudimentary aspects of the setup, I'd say that result is sharp sharp sharp!

Nice work, will be interesting to see if you can refine it further.

Also, I wish we had Pocari Sweat over here. That stuff is so good.