Arghole Pinhole Camera

One thing they don’t teach you in chemistry class… alcohol and eBay don’t mix. That’s how I ended up with 35 plastic Argus cameras. It’s that darn eBay Wholesale Lots section… I can’t stay away from it sometimes. What am I going to do with THIRTY-F’n FIVE of these things? Ha! Pinhole cameras! That’s what! I placed one before me on the work bench. I set for a spell. I pondered. Here’s what I came up with…

Prototype… Arghole #1 … I drilled the lens out and inserted a homemade pinhole. Along with other modifications, I clipped the shutter paddle. I had to drill and insert another little peg to give the shuttle paddle something to stop against. What once was the shutter release button is now the film advance release. The lens cover is now the shutter.

Taken with the Arghole #1:

On Arghole #1, I had trimmed the shutter door finger too short and it ended up sticking in a couple of shots. Overall though, I was pretty pleased with the outcome. Two changes needed to be made. The original paddle that was the shutter had been trimmed too short … it wouldn’t fire the flash. On Arghole #2, I trimmed the shutter paddle so it wouldn’t cover the hole, but it would fire the flash when activated. Also, after looking at some images taken with #2, I decided that I liked the hole on Arghole #1 better, so I swapped it with Arghole #2’s hole. Arghole #2 is now a perfectly functioning machine! Now I’ve got a functioning flash on a pinhole camera that accepts a roll of 35mm film. Wildly fun playing with the flash!

I was obsessed with Matchbox cars until the age of ten, when I picked up a Kodak Instamatic camera…

Flash exposure – nearly instant. I find that I can’t use flash with subjects directly in front of the hole. They need to be about 4 inches away. Otherwise, the flash won’t hit them.

 The good news is, there are 33 more of these cameras floating around somewhere out there. They’re two-tone (sh*t brown… I mean, chocolate brown and black) pinhole cameras called Argholes. These cameras were a limited edition and each was signed and numbered by me! These Arghole cameras came with complete instructions & a faux leather case that says, “CAMERA” on it. (That’s so you won’t get your Arghole confused with something else like, say, a hole in the ground?) I sold them all.

Though I tried to keep quality control to a minimum, every now and then I would arbitrarily pick up an Arghole for experimentation.

Click on any image for a larger view:

A note about the Arghole Limited Edition camera logo: I wanted to use a picture of a donut. I didn’t want to actually buy a package of donuts, so I took my little Webster mini scanner to the grocery store and scanned the perfect cinnamon donut, right through the packaging.