Our oldest daughter has for her high school photography class.

No idea on what it cost... School supplied the film, and the kids brought in the parts from stuff at home.

I'm still wondering how she racked up $130 in repairs for the old Minolta SLR camera I bought for her for $85 that had supposedly just been cleaned and refurbed...

I've made a pinhole camera that costs almost nothing to make. All you need is a 35 MM plastic film canister, tin foil, masking tape, and B&W photo paper. Use a hole punch to put a hole in one side of the film canister (about midway from the top on one side only). Then tape a piece of foil and tap small square of it (about one inch) over the hole so the foil covers the hole and the area around it. Carefully push on the foil so that in kind of concaves into the hole like a little dimple. Now carefully take a fine needle or pin and make a tiny hole in the foil in the middle of the dimple. The smaller the hole the better. A big hole makes for crummy pictures.

Then you go into the dark room and place a on inch or so piece of photo paper inside the cannister on the opposite of the hole up against the back of the cannister. The paper should be curved to follow the back of the cannister. Place the lid on the cannister and your finger over the outside hole. Take the camera out into the light and set it down in front of what you want to take a picture of. Take your finger off the hole for a few seconds and then cover the hole again with your finger. Take it back to the dark room and place it into the developer. Remember how long you counted. Each camera will be different and it may take a couple of tries to figure out how many seconds of exposure. If the pin hole is big it will take fewer seconds. If it is small it will take more seconds. If the picture comes out too dark in the develper you can either expose it for less time or cheat and take it out of the developer earlier. Of course you will need an amber light in your dark room to see any of this! Don't use a red light like in the movies and on T.V. It won't work.

The photo paper and developing chemicals can be purchase inexpensively at a photo supply store. Most major cities have at least one. The chemicals are easy to mix. There are basically hour stages. The first is developer, then a wash (usually water), then a solution called fixer(this makes the picture light proof so you can take it out and look at it), and then another wash. The solutions are just in trays or pans. They won't hurt your hands but some people like to use rubber tongs. You can do it in complete darkness if you can count good and set everything up in advance but you can get an amber light bulb pretty reasonable. Be careful with the amber light though and keep it dim in a corner away from your work area. You can still hurt your photos and paper if it gets to close or there is any white light coming into your work area.

I have personally made this camera and it works. It is a great way to learn about photography. We made them in highschool photo class and I still remember the excitement of seeing my New York Yankees baseball cap show up on the photo paper when I put it into the developer chemical.

I think this would make a fun Webelos project and if you sweet talked the guy at the photo shop and told him what you were doing they might even help out.
 
You can make pinhole cameras out of all sorts of containers from pringles containers, mint tins, and even oatmeal boxes.  If you google it there are many different plans on the internet.

-- Edited by Duke of Mirth at 11:36, 2007-12-07