Photographic film is complicated. Having cheap and readily available amounts of it is amazing — it gives us one pre-made component so that we can focus all our

Photographic film is complicated. Having cheap and readily available amounts of it is amazing — it gives us one pre-made component so that we can focus all our energy on hacking a camera. This project is very cool because not only does it leverage pre-made film, but also that often overlooked marvel the pre-made electric motor is in there too. The electric motor was such a marvel when it was first available commercially that you would buy one separately and then gather together a smorgasbord of different machines which you could use with your motor. If you told these people at the time that motors would become ubiquitous to the extent that individual devices would have their own, permanently attached, dedicated motors they would have been astonished. Finally, if you don’t have access to a 3D printer but want to build your own camera, the classic example is the 24mm frame matchbox pinhole — little more than two film cans with an exposure chamber in between. http://www.matchboxpinhole.com/winder.html http://www.matchboxpinhole.com/winder.html