The inspirational pinhole issue in 'Black & White Photography' magazine last month gave rise to a little bit of lateral thought, and suggested a new use for the ‘Rollei’ wooden film boxes, supplied with 10 packs of 35mm, and 12 packs of 120 Rollei films. Although making excellent pencil cases, there surely ought to be ways of recycling them into photographic channels, so here is one option, an ultra wide panoramic pinhole conversion requiring very little work to commission.
The interior of the box was painted in matt black, the front drilled out quite large (not large enough on the Mk 1), and black photo tape used to wrap around the lid joint after loading. As luck has it, 5x7” paper or film if cut lengthways is virtually a perfect fit - magic tape was used on to tack the material into the box, but some guide channels fastened to the back would be a more permanent arrangement. The shutter was black photo paper bag plastic taped on the front, removed and replaced in the fashion of using a lens cap for the purpose. The camera was fastened onto a tripod with a strong elastic band; the first test used HP5 film, exposure time 5 seconds in bright sunlight.