Model Kit: A pinhole camera!
From: Japan, of course!
Time to build: 2 hours
Difficulty: medium – relatively easy to follow instructions, but unlike a model robot – where if something goes wrong maybe it’ll look a bit funny – make a mistake on this and none of your photos will turn out. a bit nervous making.
The Story
Recently, I got the idea of being more creative with my toys and photographing them outside and super up close. My cel phone camera does a great job of distorting the images, but I imagined that a good old fashioned pinhole would do even better. So I looked online for some instructions to build one. Mother of god, it’s a lot of work.
But then I came across this beauty – the P-Sharan STD-35. It’s a pinhole camera alright, made almost completely of paper. It even includes a full mechanism for loading and advancing 35mm film. And as expected from a Japanese model kit, the pieces fit together beautifully. It was actually quite fascinating to see, as I built it, the ingenious ways all the mechanisms had been designed out of paper and simplified into a kit.
If I can manage to find 100ASA film – which is so 20th Century, I know – I’m off to do a test roll.
I am Otaku 
This is the best designed, build-it-yourself, paper pinhole camera that I’ve ever built. I built it last night and am going to try it out today. I am surprised that none of the paper cameras have a tripod mount which would consist of cardstock with a square nut embedded into it. It would attach easily to the bottom of the STD-35.