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The wooden pinhole camera

The wooden pinhole camera

The wooden pinhole camera
19 June 2015

Filters are for cheats.

If you want to take time over your photography, frame your shot, find the perfect lighting levels, balance the composition - well then a DSLR is probably the camera you want. But if you want to get back to the origins of taking a picture and moving your photography hobby into unexplored levels of hipster-obsessive, then you'll want an ONDU.

This elegant wooden pinhole camera is the creation of Slovenian brothers Elvis and Benjamin Halilović, who've put together a team to construct a range of ONDU cameras by hand from walnut and maple wood, stained with bee's wax.

As with any pinhole camera, taking a picture with an ONDU requires a great deal of patience: users will need to line up their shot using engraved sight lines on the top of the camera body, using a levelling bubble to ensure it sits flat.

Once you've lined up the shot, you flick a wooden shutter open to allow light to enter the pin hole, before snapping it shut when the preferred amount of exposure has been captured. Wooden rollers then allow for the photographic film to be wound on between shots.

A mode of photography that's been around since the fifth century BC, the ONDU modernises the process with neat touches: magnets hold down the rear of the camera case, allowing for easy removal, with different models catering for preferred film sizes. For an idea of the sort of images it can capture, check out the group's Flickr page.

The smallest ONDU - which uses 135mm film - can be ordered from Kickstarter for around £40, with larger models reflected by a large price: there's an eight by ten inch model available for £190. First deliveries are expected from November 2015 - so you'll just have to make do with your smartphone and a set of filters until then.

You're probably going to just stick to using Instagram, aren't you? We thought as much.