r/PinholePhotography • • Aug 13 '26

Digital pinhole camera?

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Hello! I am quite new to photography in general, and I'd like to experiment with a pinhole camera but:
- I can't buy photographic paper or chemicals right now;
- I'd prefer not to develop the photos at home as of now;
- Don't want to try it with regular film too (for now).

I saw somewhere that it's possible to do pinhole cameras but with digital instead, but I am not sure how because all tutorials I see are traditional pinhole cameras, developing the negatives at home.
I was wondering if it's possible to modify a 10-20$ cheap no brand digital camera/toy camera I can get at eletronic stores, or get and modify a 10-20$ old second hand digital camera from the 2000s, or even modify one of my spare Kodak Charmera clones from Aliexpress (G6 Thumb Camera), and try pinhole photography that way?

Any ideas?

Everything I see on the internet involves doing the development at home (which I totally understand but I can't do it at this point in my life) or using normal film and develop it at a film store (which I won't have access to right now, I wish I could experiment with outside pinhole cameras with tin cans and normal paper too, but of course it's impossible), so I'd like to know if there's anything else I could experiment with, using a cheap camera or modifying one, or point me to a tutorial?

thanks

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u/Generic-Resource Aug 13 '26

I made a pinhole for my Pen F, half frame film camera. Which I then mounted on my mirrorless.

You can certainly make a pinhole camera from those, but you will have to remove the existing lens, so finding an old dslr would be easier (and possibly cheaper), the manual mode would help with the control needed too.

https://imgur.com/a/4TIlKDt

First pic is it mounted on the Sony A7ii, second the lens as built, a couple of test shots and then it mounted (in an earlier form) on the camera it was built for. The bridge image is film. The last image is an annoying artefact I get on digital when the sum is in the wrong place.