The revival in film photography has brought a range of specialist films to tempt the experimenter, as well as increased the popularity of loading your own cartridges. But perforating the film from blank stock has always been beyond the reach of home gamers. Now [Jon Schiereck] has done it, but not quite with film. He’s made a perforator for photographic paper, producing a strip which can be shot in a camera. It’s film, but it’s not exactly film.
The machine takes the form of a 3D printed mechanism which feeds a strip of photographic paper through a pair of punches to make the sprocket holes. In this case those holes are circular, being made by a pair of drill bits ground for the purpose, and they’re moved up and down by a crank driven by a set of gears from a hand crank or even a cordless drill. A rubber roller pulls the film forward.
It seems to be a well-thought-out machine, and you can try it yourself for free via a slightly unusual distribution medium, his Ko-Fi page. In case you’re worried about finding a slitter to make those 35mm paper strips, it seems he’s also working on a 3D printable one of those. So you can shoot on paper, and develop it just as you would a print.
If you’re further into extending what you can film through the use of a 3D printer, how about 8 mm movie film?
Neat. I wonder how long this mechanism will last… especially the die plate.
No criticism implied… I’m actually curious.
Very cool device. I wonder if a rotating punch would be viable to make with 3D-printing. It could make it much faster and give more consistent spacing between the holes.
Seriously? 35mm little paper images with all the downsides to nasty chemistry and expense…
I am more in inclined to:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/samellos/im-back-roll-aps-c-one-roll-no-screen-pure-shooting
I will say his 3D printing skills are impressive!
Jenny, some links to, or article about, the paper-film photography process would be pretty interesting
Paper makes a poor substrate for photographic negatives because its optical density is not uniform. The result is blotchy images.
‘Blotchy Images’ ? I have their first album: ‘Vaseline On the Lens’
faux bokeh
Mel Brooks would appreciate this. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IgbqnlHS2aw