Photographer’s Customized SLR Movie Digicam May Shoot 180 Photographs Per Roll

A movie photographer has relived the story of his creation: the ‘little stupid camera’ — a customized 35mm SLR that would shoot 180 frames per roll.

Japhy Riddle’s earlier experiments embrace turning a full-frame 35mm digicam right into a half-frame digicam by masking the movie gate within the viewfinder with some electrical tape after which operating the movie by way of twice with a four-perforation offset.

That meant as a substitute of 36 exposures, Riddle was getting 72 photographs per roll. “At the cost of a little less resolution, narrower angles of view of the lenses, and a bit of hassle when it came to loading the camera,” he provides.

After the success of making his personal half-frame digicam, Riddle determined to push issues even additional. After one failed experiment, Riddle got here up with the ‘little stupid camera’. “It’s not a good name for it,” he says. “But it kind of stuck”.

The ‘little stupid camera’ is a standard-sized 35mm digicam with a deal with connected to it. The ‘little’ and ‘stupid’ a part of its title refers back to the barely ridiculous format he created within the movie gate.

“I did the same masking technique as I’ve done before,” he explains. “Only this time I went extreme.”

And excessive he went. Instead of the half-frame the place there are two exposures per body, Riddle by some means squeezed round 5 photographs per body. That’s 180 photographs from a single roll.

While his experiment with half-frame noticed Riddle feed the movie by way of twice, he determined that will be unrealistic for the ‘little stupid camera’. So as a substitute he devised a way the place he would primarily shoot backwards: first advancing the whole roll onto the take-up spool after which rewinding it again roughly a 1/6 of a full flip earlier than the whole sheet was again within the canister. Riddle even marked the rewinder each 60 levels as a useful information.

“The whole point of this camera was to feel free,” says Riddle. “It’s easy to think of film as this really precious stuff and you want to make every picture count. But with photos roughly a 1/5 of the normal size and a 1/5 of the normal price, it allows you to just go wild.”

Despite Kodak taking again management of its movie distribution, barely decreasing the worth level, movie images in 2026 stays an costly passion and getting 180 photographs from a roll is actually interesting — even when the photographs come out letterbox-shaped.

Riddle says he shot just a few rolls with the ‘little stupid camera’ earlier than giving it away to somebody. More of his work could be discovered on Instagram.

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Image credit: Photographs by Japhy Riddle