A film photographer has relived the tale of his creation: the ‘little stupid camera’ — a custom 35mm SLR that could shoot 180 frames per roll.
Japhy Riddle’s previous experiments include turning a full-frame 35mm camera into a half-frame camera by masking the film gate in the viewfinder with some electrical tape and then running the film through twice with a four-perforation offset.
That meant instead of 36 exposures, Riddle was getting 72 shots per roll. “At the cost of a little less resolution, narrower angles of view of the lenses, and a bit of hassle when it came to loading the camera,” he adds.
After experimenting how to get more shots from a roll of film, Riddle came up with the ‘little stupid camera’.
After the success of creating his own half-frame camera, Riddle decided to push things even further. After one failed experiment, Riddle came up with the ‘little stupid camera’. “It’s not a good name for it,” he says. “But it kind of stuck”.
The ‘little stupid camera’ is a standard-sized 35mm camera with a handle attached to it. The ‘little’ and ‘stupid’ part of its name refers to the slightly ridiculous format he created in the film gate.
“I did the same masking technique as I’ve done before,” he explains. “Only this time I went extreme.”
And extreme he went. Instead of the half-frame where there are two exposures per frame, Riddle somehow squeezed around five photos per frame. That’s 180 shots from a single roll.
It meant the ‘little stupid camera’s’ aspect ratio is an extreme 4:1. 
Examples from the ‘little stupid camera’. 
Japhy Riddle
While his experiment with half-frame saw Riddle feed the film through twice, he decided that would be unrealistic for the ‘little stupid camera’. So instead he devised a technique where he would essentially shoot backwards: first advancing the entire roll onto the take-up spool and then rewinding it back roughly a 1/6 of a full turn before the entire sheet was back in the canister. Riddle even marked the rewinder every 60 degrees as a helpful guide.
“The whole point of this camera was to feel free,” says Riddle. “It’s easy to think of film as this really precious stuff and you want to make every picture count. But with photos roughly a 1/5 of the normal size and a 1/5 of the normal price, it allows you to just go wild.”
“It was a camera made for fun, not a camera for good work,” says Riddle. 
Japhy Riddle 
Japhy Riddle
Despite Kodak taking back control of its film distribution, slightly lowering the price point, film photography in 2026 remains an expensive hobby and getting 180 shots from a roll is certainly appealing — even if the photos come out letterbox-shaped.
Riddle says he shot a few rolls with the ‘little stupid camera’ before giving it away to someone. More of his work can be found on Instagram.
Image credits: Photographs by Japhy Riddle