jello. Some of u know that I want to convert my crap ass Yashica Electro 35 into a pinhole camera. I just got home, and upong looking over the camera, I realized that the lens is permanently attached to the camera, no way to take it off. Now, here's the thing, I want it off... It seems to be welded on sort of, can't really tell. Either welded or a really really tight glue job. I figure I could easily just take a hammer to it. The main thing is, I doesn't really matter how much damage the camera takes in the front, because I'll be making a pinhole attachment afterwards, probably a real hack job too, but so long as I can keep all light from coming through, it should work. The camera is not an slr, but a viewfinder, so there aren't any mirrors to damage on the inside. Basically, so long as the shutter stays intact on the inside, it should be fine right? I never use this camera, cuz its aperture priority, and I hate prioritis camera, much prefer fully manual. BUUUUT, it needs a battery or something replaced, because no matter what the setting, the shutter will stay open for as lon as I have the shutter relase pressed down. I figure this would be great for both long exposure and pinhole shots. Right now, I'm much more in the mood to do pinhole, cuz I can always borrow a Nikon fm-10 from concordia if I ever want to do "normal shots". Question being, do ya'll think any damage would result in hammering the the lens right off, damage to the shutter being the only thing I'm worried? Well, I prolly won't be waiting for answers, as I Will never use this camera otherwise if I can't make it a vaible pinhole solution. The main reason I wanna do this, is because me thinks being able to expose pinhole photography onto negatives and slides would be INSANELY cool! I really get all giddy at the thought of working with pinhole exposed negatives in a darkroom setting. Shooting colour and black and white negatives, infra-red film, and slide film with a pinhole camera sounds way too good an option to resist with this otherwise useless camera... me thinks I'm gonna go get the tool box now. Anyways, comments on my twisted endeavour are always welcome. puts cup of blueberries down and goes to the closet for the big ass hammer...

Well if the camera is a piece of crap anyway.....and you'll never use it...go and destroy the sucka. Sound way cool what you want to do with it...I'd be more worried about destroying the lens if it's still good.

I am, therefore I create.......
--- michelleamarante.com

Dude.. try using a vice grip and a clamp if ya got one...then twistin the hell outta it...might just work! Hey by the way..what is a "pinhole camera" anyways?!!?!? Good luck man! L8r!

www.pinhole.org is one site that comes to mind daze...

I seem to remember a pinhole cam photographer (whose name is not clear now) who were using pinhole cams made out of empty matchboxes...

I and a close friend had once tried our chance to build a pinhole cam, and had succeeded fairly well...
...But, ours was exposing right on 18x24 cm print papers, and to see to positive photo, we were contact printing the exposed one on an other paper under strong enlarger light for long duration.

One thing I remember is that the perspective, esp. in close-ups, differs quite a bit from shooting the same pic through optical cameras...

Have great fun Slynky... :-) (BTW, I really do not have a positive idea about demolishing an intact camera, esp. a Yashica, even though it's not a SLR...)

I remember that me, my close friend and her lover trying to stand rather still for nearly 30 minutes to portray ourselves with the pinhole cam I talked about above... We were quite idealistic for the first 5-10 minutes... ...But then, me and friend had started to chat and laugh about the situation, and freind's lover had went into the kitchen to make some tea, and then had returned back to achieve her position in front of the box (pinhole cam). It was fun..!

well, i've ripped half the lens off by now. Problem: Me thinks the other half is actually part of the camera body... i might have to take it to a friend's house to get it sawed off. also slightly bad. I wrecked the shutter somewhere along the lines of smashing the lens and body. Means I wont be able to press a button for shutter release... just mean I'll have to do the whole "slip cover" thing i guess. I will persist tho, me wants a pinhole cam that'll expose to negatives that wont cost me any money. lol, poor little old electro 35, how we hated thee so...

damn, shame I wasn't here last night, my advice would have been a junior hacksaw in the first place. Hammers are great for brute force and ignorance, but when you need to control the damage.....well, now you know. snigger. (",)

OMG! Man what are you at, I converted my SLR to a pin hole by just drilling a small hole in the lens cap then sticking a bit of foil over the hole I then made a small pin prick in the foil. It worked just fine. And if you made multiple holes say three you got three images on the film. Better get the sticky tape out, LOL. :O)

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing. Salvador Dali

I think I might have the details in a book up the darkroom I will look them out for you mate.

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing. Salvador Dali

Oh Slynky! We used to have a Yashica "Electro 35"...great name aint it! ~ It was the family holiday camera...zillions of slides of us looking nerdy taken with that one! From what I can remember it was a solid little devil! You're already well into the project...lol, breaking things is easy...putting them back together is the hard bit...Bigg Jeff, what an elegant (and lateral-thinking) solution... ;-)>

Slynky heres that page on pinhole photography. have fun :O)

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing. Salvador Dali

As you can see mate, its the body cap you use not the lens cap as I thought I remembered, It was a few years ago. So you were right to smash that fixed lens off and destroy your camera.lol :O)

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing. Salvador Dali