The Lab: The cardboard camera you build yourself

Instagram and Hipstamatic have made “retro” photographs one of the biggest trends of the 21st century - but a new cardboard camera aims to go even further.

The Videre camera was invented by London camera enthusiast Kelly Angood, 24 and is a DIY camera which arrives as a flat pack, taking photos through a pinhole rather than a lens.

Angood discusses her invention  this week in The Lab, a weekly video series made by Yahoo! and Sky, exploring the ideas of Britain’s brightest young inventors.

Angood hopes to plug into a community of online vintage photo fans that she “found” by designing an earlier “DIY” camera. She used KickStarter to fund Videre, and raised £35,000 in weeks - more than twice her original goal.

"I'm at the final prototype stage, so it's currently with the manufacturers in Leeds," Angood says."The camera is totally made using UK suppliers." It will be available in November this year.

[Related: The Lab: Laser bike light which could save cyclists' lives]

"This project started over two years ago when I created my first pinhole camera. I’d always wanted a 'real' medium format camera, but I knew I’d never be able to afford one. So I dealt with it the only way I knew how and made one," Angood says.

The paper camera takes pictures on medium-format film - and is made of “hard-wearing” cardboard. The printed, die-cut kit will come with instructions.

Angood says she was “overwhelmed” by the response to her first camera, which was inspired by classic Hasselblad models, and available as a PDF download from her site.

“I realised that this community needed a unique design it could call it's own, so I set to work on the Videre - a brand new, medium format pinhole camera specifically designed with this community in mind.”

Fast Company said, “It’s Angood’s perfectionism that elevates the Videre beyond mere gimmick to a nostalgic reboot, a celebration of vintage cameras, papercraft, and medium format film photography in one.”