Author Topic: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak  (Read 9719 times)

Francois

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The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« on: October 28, 2015, 09:36:33 PM »
WARNING: The following contains an excess of bad puns and overall nuttiness.

Well, it's been a long time since I haven't built something really special. But this time I think I outdid myself!
It all started from a long time memory of those years I spent living on a desert island. Not that I was alone, there was a movie star, a millionaire and his wife, an eminent scientist and the boat's captain and his first mate. I was young and all I had to play with was a coconut... Ah, those days!
Well... OK, even though I extensively watched Gilligan's island when I was a kid, I never set foot on a desert island where I could live in a bamboo bungalow... and my only experience with coconut came from those delicious cookies I had... but still.

The other day, I was at the grocery store when I saw a beam of heavenly light coming down from the ceiling showing me the way to a basket of coconuts. They were basking in a flood of light created by a spotlight... looking at me in all their fuzzy brown goodness. One of them looked just like the head of a smiling sloth and I just couldn't leave it there.

I must have been in desperate need for a new toy, so I had a brainwave like only a nut could have... well, I was a bit hungry and tired and I thought of how much Gilligan would have loved to get his own Gillicam... And, I was the one who would make one for no other reason than because I can. So I got it and proceeded to the conversion. I set myself some rules: use only what would have been available on a desert island to craft the camera. Then I looked at the garage and said the heck with those rules, lets just make it.

I found some boards. They weren't really straight but I said whatever, lets use them. I drained and cut my nut in half (and no, it didn't give me a splitting headache) and removed all the pulp that was inside. I then marked the outlines on the boards and proceeded to cut holes to fit the nuts in. Once everything fit together, I just held them in place with hot glue.
To hold it on the tripod, I took some scraps of wood and made a custom fitted bracket using a contour replicating tool (it's made from a series of wires in a holder and works very well, they sell them in good hardware stores, but I had mine for what seems like forever).
For the tripod nut, I used one of those screw-in adapters... my last one.

At that point, it must have been supper time or something... I decided to make the pinhole out of a piece of the top of a soup can that I banged into shape using the handle of a screwdriver. Once it fit the contours of the interior of the coconut, I glued it in place with a bit of epoxy and sealed the leaks with aluminum tape that I then covered with hockey tape. I drilled the hole to precisely 19/1000 of an inch. That's one small drill bit!

Now came the holding the whole thing together part... I wanted something free and widely available. Mailman's rubber bands would do the trick. So I shaped some notches in the board so that they would always be at the same place.
For light-proofing, black foamy craft sheets were selected... but didn't work. I then added more foamy... didn't work. So I got tired and just used some weatherproofing foam.

While aluminum is usually a good material for pinholes, I tend to like using soup cans when I can. I can use them with a magnetic shutter that is dead simple to make. I just took a recycled neodymium magnet from an old toy and glued it to an old arcade token. Perfect!

A bit of black paint inside and there you have it, a perfect Cocokodak pinhole camera.

Does it work... I still have to find out.
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.

Indofunk

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Re: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« Reply #1 on: October 28, 2015, 10:06:31 PM »
:D "No cash value"

Bryan

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Re: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« Reply #2 on: October 28, 2015, 10:29:21 PM »
You need to develop the film with lime juice if that's possible.

Quote
Bruder bought a coconut, he bought it for a dime
His sister had anudder one she paid it for de lime

She put de lime in de coconut, she drank 'em bot' up
She put de lime in de coconut, she drank 'em bot' up
She put de lime in de coconut, she drank 'em bot' up
She put de lime in de coconut, she call de doctor, woke 'I'm up

Said, "Doctor, ain't there nothin' I can take?"
I said, "Doctor, to relieve this belly ache"
I said, "Doctor, ain't there nothin' I can take?"
I said, "Doctor, to relieve this belly ache"

Now lemme get this straight
You put de lime in de coconut, you drank 'em bot' up
You put de lime in de coconut, you drank 'em bot' up
You put de lime in de coconut, you drank 'em bot'up
You put de lime in de coconut, you call your doctor, woke 'I'm up

Adam Doe

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Re: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« Reply #3 on: October 28, 2015, 11:02:03 PM »
Wow!  + 1,000,000 points for building a Gillicam, Cocokodak! + 100 points for using hockey tape. -100 points for not drinking a cocktail from half the shell a la Thurston Howell III before building the cam. That is awesome. I can't wait to see a picture from that thing.

jojonas~

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Re: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« Reply #4 on: October 29, 2015, 08:33:50 AM »
francois, you are a hero of camera building :D

and I wholly recognize the reoccurring thought "hey, I think I can make a camera with this!" ;D
/jonas

Francois

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Re: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« Reply #5 on: October 29, 2015, 02:57:46 PM »
Thanks guys!

It was fun because it's the first time I make a camera without measuring anything... just eyeballed the whole thing :)

Now if that rain can stop long enough so that I can try it out...
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.

Francois

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Re: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« Reply #6 on: November 03, 2015, 07:48:42 PM »
Here's the glorious first photo from the cocokodak.
And unsurprisingly, it's a dud.
It was overexposed, there are light leaks, plenty of dust... and to boot, I dropped the negative on the floor before processing and it slowly slipped partly under the door to the lighted room on the other side...
I betcha you never did anything like that?
So I have a negative that needed a ton of adjustment in photoshop... both curves and levels, which is a rare thing.
So anyways, here is the first failure of the cocokodak... like they say, back to the old drawing board!
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.

Indofunk

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Re: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« Reply #7 on: November 04, 2015, 02:46:58 AM »
You didn't screw it up enough ... I can make out a tree in there ;) Next time maybe try opening the kokocodac in the light, or maybe develop the neg for 6 hours (falling asleep 1/2 hour into the dev cycle helps, I've found ;) ).

Francois

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Re: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« Reply #8 on: November 04, 2015, 01:46:33 PM »
I actually think there's not enough dust on it...

I think I'm going to put the project on the back burner...
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.

jojonas~

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Re: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« Reply #9 on: November 04, 2015, 02:30:32 PM »
wohoo, results!

I actually think there's not enough dust on it...

maybe if you rebuild a vacum cleaner into a camera? :D
/jonas

Francois

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Re: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« Reply #10 on: November 04, 2015, 08:51:23 PM »
Very funny...

But I know a few placed in the house where there are dust bunny colonies  ::)
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.

FiatluX

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Re: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« Reply #11 on: January 16, 2016, 06:54:46 PM »
I envision a Coconol developer to come soon..  ;)

Francois

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Re: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« Reply #12 on: January 17, 2016, 02:11:59 PM »
If it would work, that would be the sweetest thing...

Somehow I'm still surprised that there hasn't been a monty python joke on this thread....
But somehow I'm starting to believe that this camera is the holy grail of pythonesque photography ;)
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.

Bryan

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Re: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« Reply #13 on: January 19, 2016, 04:31:30 AM »
I envision a Coconol developer to come soon..  ;)

It works:

Coconal Test by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

Shot with a Canon AE-1 the film is Ilford Delta 100.  I used "Pure" Coconut water to develop the film.  I put "Pure" in quotes because even though it says so on the label I didn't get it directly from a coconut.  They may have added some sugar and Vitamin C.  The recipe is as follows:

Pure Coconut Water (I used Vita Coco brand) - 500mL
Washing Soda - 20g
Vitamin C - 8g
Develop at 20 degrees C for 15 minutes.  30 seconds of agitation at start and 15 seconds for every minute after that.

Clearly the recipe needs some work but I think this answers the question that has stumped the scientific community for decades:  How did the castaways develop the film in the Gilligan's Island episode Castaway Pictures Presents?  Now we know.

http://gilligan.wikia.com/wiki/Castaways_Pictures_Presents

Francois

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Re: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« Reply #14 on: January 19, 2016, 02:27:40 PM »
All I can think of is: no way!
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.

Bryan

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Re: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« Reply #15 on: January 19, 2016, 02:57:36 PM »
After I read FiatluX post I did a quick search and found that Coconut water has caffeic acid.  I also saw that it has Vitamin C but I don't think it has anywhere near enough for film development.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24141413

Francois

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Re: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« Reply #16 on: January 19, 2016, 09:13:02 PM »
I'm really beginning to wonder if there is anything that won't develop film!
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.

jharr

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Re: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« Reply #17 on: January 21, 2016, 04:05:57 AM »
African swallow poo perhaps?
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Bryan

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Re: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« Reply #18 on: January 21, 2016, 04:45:39 AM »
African swallow poo perhaps?

That would depend on what they eat but I'm not going to test that one.

Francois

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Re: The Contraption 24: The Cocokodak
« Reply #19 on: January 21, 2016, 02:26:22 PM »
Too bad there won't be new episodes of mythbusters... They could have tested it along with coconut carrying crow droppings.
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.