Help Us Design Our 6x9 Camera

My DaYi 617 back has an open window instead of a red window, so no problems with reading the printing, and it has a shutter that can be closed after advancing the film, and I haven't had a problem with fogging. There are three windows for 6x9, 6x12, and 6x17, and with this arrangement I never get overlapping frames, so I'm okay with frame number windows.

6x9 Fotoman Camera

The camera should be simple, like 6x12 already built, with integral front rise of about 20 mm.

I would love a 6x9 camera that used the Mamiya Press and Mamiya RB67 "P" mount for interchangeable film and Polaroid backs. A camera with a native "P" mount can a Polaroid back directly and fill the full 95x73mm available image. It can also take "G" (Graflok/RB67) or "M" (Mamiya Press) adapters for roll-film backs (6x9, 6x8, 6x7, 6x6 and 645; 120, 220 and 70mm; manual and motorized winding; lever-wind automatic stop and red window counting; some with built-in shutter releases and double/blank exposure prevention), focusing screens, right-angle and direct screen magnifiers, and so on. The versatility is unrivalled and the prices of all these accessories on the used market are very reasonable. The S-shaped Mamiya Press backs are said to have the best film flatness of any medium format system, other than special vacuum-hold 220 backs. In my experience, this is probably true.

So basically what I want is a camera with the same rear mount as a Mamiya Press Universal.

But that is a bulky and heavy camera, and it is restricted to Mamiya's own Press lenses. Although I have that system and love it, imagine the possibilities of (a) getting rid of the upper rangefinder/viewfinder section, (b) thinning down the body to accept ultrawide lenses, (c) changing the lensmount to take Fotoman-style lens boards & focus mounts, instead of a bayonet mount and lenses with their own focusing helicals.

Some camera hackers, recognising the wide availability, wonderful versatility and excellent quality of the Mamiya backs and accessories for the P and M mounts, have produced one-off systems along these lines - e.g. some of CLABO's models. As you can see if you peruse CLABO's pages, all you need is a $25 "P" adapter - that takes care of the back-mounting system - and the rest is basic woodwork and a bit of metal cutting for the lens boards. But this type of approach produces cameras that are not exactly elegant, the parallelism tolerances in the homemade parts are probably flaky (unless you have access to a really good machinist), and in some cases they rely on bellows etc. which are not rigid. I'd rather have a rigid body and lens mount.

So - a 6x9 + Polaroid camera with the professionally made, compact rigid body and lens-mounting system of a Fotoman, and the back-mounting system of a Mamiya Universal. Now _that_ is a camera that I would buy in a heartbeat.

Ray

Ray, IMO there is no need to dream nostalgically about the Mamiya 6x9 RFH (and I use them too, have built several cameras around them). Horseman RFHs are smaller (for the same format) and have no problem with film flatness either (heck, even Alpa cameras use them!) As for the Polaroid use on a 6x9 camera it seems to be a non essential accessory with dubious advantage for this kind of a camera. I think there are also Horseman RFH for 6x7 (I'm not sure about 6x4,5). But now, when the Dmax camera offers all these formats (even 6x12) the niche for the 6x9 is smaller. Probably it could be just a simple 6x9 variant of the 6x12, 6x17 etc. cameras. In such a case its simplicity would be the greatest attraction of such a camera. Pity there isn't any Fotoman camera that could change the format from 6x24 gradually to 6x9 (6x7). With the red window winding one could probably avoid the need for a complicated RFH and you could have 3 or 4 Fotoman cameras in one. The weight difference wouldn't need to be great with this feature...

Fotoman-
PANO! And keep it simple or else you will be competing with Horseman, Linhof, etc. It complicates the manufacture but a folder to minimize size would be great.
Limit to 6x9. A rangefinder would be lovely, as would a film counter.
Look at the old Graflex XLWA as an example but it is too bulky and hard to grip and cannot be transported easily.
I believe there is a searing need (look at Fleabay prices for Zeiss folders) to a reliable, simple rangefinder in 6x9.
Thanks.
Russ

Right now, I am hauling a Fuji GSW690III around w/ Techpan in it. Aside from the toy-like VF, T setting and fixed lens, I like it. Really sharp =28mm lens.

......it's light.

Make us a carbon fiber body for roll film, w/ a counter, a backpacker's dream. I use small net bags filled with rocks for ballast anyway, so shave away the pounds will ya? Use Ti or a slightly thinner T-6 in the cones too as to get the whole thing minus lens to around 1-1/2 to 2lbs.

Light..

Light...

Liiiiight....

Dave Wooten said:

Here is a new design presented recently for 6 x 9, helical cones

Click to expand...

This looks very good indeed, and if you fix a Super-Angulon 65 mm on it, than this will look like an Hasselblad SW/C 38 mm but in 6x9 cm format (perhaps you could add the 21 mm Voightlander view finder). An interchangeable back is not a absolute must, would be perfect for me, if affordable!

Go on designing!

Philippe