If you have bought yourself a snazzy new A3 flatbed scanner and you have decided that you don’t need your old scanner anymore, here’s a little do-it-yourself project you can work on. Did you know that with a little bit of tinkering around, you can repurpose your old scanner into some sort of primitive pinhole camera?
The best thing about turning your old scanner into a camera? You don’t need to take the scanner apart, nor do you need to alter the scanner’s hardware in a permanent manner, so if you need your scanner back, it’s easy to undo what you’ve done. This is a safe DIY project, folks.
You will need black foamcore board, a magnifying glass, and a razor. First, you need to remove the cover. Then measure the size of the scanner glass for the baseboard, then cut the foamcore into the glass’ dimensions. You will need to glue together three layers of foamcore for some thickness. Cut out a 7×7 inch square hole in the middle of the foamcore boards. You will need to make a cube in the same dimensions as the hole, then you need to cover it with a cube of slightly bigger dimensions.
Then you will need to make the lensboard – just cut a 3.5-inch hole on a 7×7 board for the box’s cover. Cut a hole the size of the magnifying glass on a 6×6 inch board. Put that on top of the board. Now make pinhole/aperture cards, then you’re ready! Point your camera at your sublect, run your scanner as normal, and you have your pinhole scanner camera ready! You can find a video on how to make the camera here.
Your photos will come out with a bizarre and spooky appearance. Perfect for that Halloween photo project! Quick, try it out now!
