Adventures With Pinhole and Home-Made Cameras: From Tin Cans to Precision Engineering

Rating:
Summary: Inspiring blend of artistic visions and practical aspects
Review: Ever since I own this book, I find myself picking it up again and again. It is divided into two parts: one containing an interesting array of very diverse photographers, united only by their use of non-readymade equipment. Personally, I find the way in which the hyper-sharp pictures of Alistair Thain, taken with precision-engineerd cameras of his own design, reveal their disturbing aspects as inspiring as the monochrome pinhole pictures of Walter Crump whose equipment is reduced to bare bones - and there are other very interesting artists. If there is an artistic message emanating from this part, it is about the relativity of technical aspects in photographic art: personal aims, a distinct individual perspective matter so much more than the reliance on the latest technological advance.
The second part deals with practical aspects of tinkering one's own equipment: it includes very useful hints and tables for making pinholes, zone plates, lenses, shutters, different sizes of film, camera bodies, focussing helps and view finders. While by no means exhaustive, these tips should be seen as a jumping-off place to develop one's own design - which may very well lead to much more satisfying results than buying the latest gadget.

Rating:
Summary: Not for the adventurer
Review: I was disappointed to discover that "Adventures With Pinhole and Home-Made Cameras" amounts basically to a coffee table book of photographs, with frustratingly brief sketches of the "who and how" of their making. It is not a practically-oriented book for the photographic tinkerer.

Even the most sophisticated designs in the book are explained in only a cursory way. Helpful diagrams and hints to construction techniques are rare. Detailed descriptions and breakdowns of real home-made cameras are missing altogether!

The book does offer a some clever ideas, like using a wine glass as an improvised lens. There is also a section in the back with information on making pinholes, calculating exposure, etc. These are only a precious few pages, however, and most of the information can be easily found elsewhere.

I bought this book as an educated photographer with an interest in building some unusual designs. I don't think that owning this book would have brought me any closer to that goal. My money would have been better spent on a pair of tin snips.