Here's a mod that will turn your Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim into a multi-exposure, low-light shooting, blur soaked Lomo killer!

The multi exposure mod lets you re-cock the shutter as many times as required without winding on, the "B" mod lets you leave the shutter open as long as you hold your finger on the "control"

All you need is:
- A Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim you don't mind hacking with a little
- A match (you may have some spare after building the matchbox pinhole ) and/or a scrap of plastic, about 1mm x 2mm x 20mm
- A small screwdriver, and some tools to cut a small slot in plastic...

First you need to get your Viv naked. There are five screws which hold the front of the camera on, positions shown below. Make a note of which screw comes from which hole as the sizes are different.

Seperate the two parts of the rewind lever and remove them from the camera.

The easiest way to sperate the case is to start at the shutter button end. Depress the shutter button so the two halves can be seperated at that end of the camera, then press in the little rewind button so that the case can be seperated at the other end. There's do need to pry at the case with a screwdriver, you'll only damage things - keep trying - it does come apart easily with practice!

The good news is we don't need to mess with the camera's mechanism, just the front panel!

This is a good time to examine what happens when the camera is wound on and fired, you need to understand what you're trying to do when operating the modded camera. To wind on with no film in the camera, open the back and turn the lower sprocket wheel to the left until it stops. Watch the mechanism under the lens at the front of the camera while doing this.I could try to descibe it, but it's best to watch it yourself, you'll get the idea.

All you need to do is cut a slot in the front panel so that this mechanism can be interfered with when the camera is assembled. The slot needs to be 10mm long, and wide enough so the match will move along it. The centre of the slot should be 18mm down from the centre of the lens hole, and start 5mm to the right of the centre of the lens hole.

Try to cut this slot as neatly as possible (i.e. neater than mine!!) Use whatever method you feel safe with to cut this, but don't sue me if you slice you fingers off doing it!!

Check that the match fits into the slot and slides smoothly up and down. Yeah, raunchy stuff, but don't get too excited here. It's time to get Viv's clothes back on!

Remember to press in the rewind button and start at the rewind button end when re-assembling, then push the shutter button down and re fit the two parts together. As with taking it apart, don't force it, be patient, it will go together eventually. Replace the screws and rewind lever.

Don't put film in just yet, practice operating the thing first without film.

Get your match. Use a sharp knife to cut a taper at the end, this will make it much easier to use than a square-ended stick.

For multi exposures, take one shot as normal. To re-cock the shutter, insert the match on the left hand slide of the slot. Slide across to the other side of the slot, you will hear the shutter being cocked.

Remove the match, and shoot again!

The match doesnt work very well for the "B" control, it's not flexible enough. Hence the plastic, which can actually be used for re-cocking the shutter too.

Cut a piece to fit the slot, about 20mm long, and taper the end as with the match. Bend the plastic slightly as shown.

For B exposures, wind on, then fire the shutter with your hand over the lens. Now insert the tapered end of the plastic into the right hand slide of the slot. It should wedge in place and stay there. Do this with care to avoid opening the shutter while inserting the plastic. To open the shutter, push the plastic to the left across the slot, you'll here the shutter slide open. Hold it there for as long as you like, then release it, it should spring back, closing the shutter! Watch out you dont get your fingers in the way of the lens doing this, it's very easy for your fingers to get in the photo with the vivitar's wide angle lens.

Make sure you remove the piece of plastic before winding on.

OK, so it's not exactly the most elegant solution - but it works, and triples the functionality of the already great Vivitar Ultra Wide and SlimD

Update: Here's some hastily produced example shots, expired 100ASA film and expired C41 home development kit!

Multi Exposure
There's three exposures in this one...

B Mode
I took a few shots of cars going by, not really very sucessful as the road was quiet and I undestimated the exposure time required with this old 100ASA film.

Multi exposure and B!!
What a mess! But it proves it works