Modern large format roll-film cameras

[narsuitus]

I would love to have a modern large format roll-film camera like the vintage Kodak No. 3A Folding Pocket Camera produced in the early 1900s. What cameras are available and what large format roll-films, like the Kodak 122, are available.

 

[Donald Qualls]

The second part of this is easy. There is no roll film in production (since about the mid-1970s) larger than 120.

There haven't been cameras made for sizes larger than 120 in much longer than that.

 

[Bob S]

The second part of this is easy. There is no roll film in production (since about the mid-1970s) larger than 120.

There haven't been cameras made for sizes larger than 120 in much longer than that.

There are large format roll cameras made until a few years ago. Two are the Linhof Aero Technika and the Aero Technika EL. Both used either sheet or Super Rollex and Rapid Rollex roll film backs as well as the Techno Rollex back or 5” aerial roll film on modified NATO spools. If you Google Pinky Nelson you can see a picture of him hand holding the EL version with the 5” roll back during a Space Shuttle mission.
The Library of Congress also used the 5” vacuum roll back on copy stands for duplicating.

 

[bluechromis]

Things you learn, apart from the military, I didn't know they had made roll film in large format. I see Kodak made an even bigger folding camera the 4A with 4 1/4 x 6 1/2 inch image. They didn't dare to call it a "pocket" camera. What's next, will someone launch a kickstarter for a Polaroid conversion that uses large format roll film?

 

[DREW WILEY]

Any 4x5 camera with a standard Graflok back will accept 120 roll film holders (6x7, 6X9, or 6X12). This includes traditional press camera like Graflex, technical cameras with somewhat more options, and full-featured view cameras with a whole range of movements. There are a number of brands of roll film holders available. But in terms of strict terminology, a Large Format roll film per se would imply something like 9 inch wide aerial film used in a massive recon camera, which is something quite different and highly specialized. Bob S, who simultaneously posted, is highly informed about Linhof aerial as well as technical cameras.

 

[Dan Fromm]

Most aerial cameras used roll film. USAF's cameras used, among others, 5" and 10" roll film. See

http://books.google.com/books?id=SiEDAAAAMBAJ&pg=RA3-PA213&lpg=RA3-PA213&dq=graflex+"big+bertha"&source=bl&ots=_VcMhKgMjf&sig=N2OK-7ZgsY-6QKRmttDCfDqa0tU&hl=en&ei=9brNSpLIGMfR8Aa4yID5Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=37#v=onepage&q=graflex "big bertha"&f=false

for an account of how Associated Press photographers used K-24 aerial camera roll holders on Graflex SLRs.

 

[mshchem]

I would love to have a modern large format roll-film camera like the vintage Kodak No. 3A Folding Pocket Camera produced in the early 1900s. What cameras are available and what large format roll-films, like the Kodak 122, are available.

Wouldn't it be great if there was still a mass market for 3A cameras, 122 roll film and pre-printed postcard back Azo in card stock so we could make our own real photo post cards 3 1/2 × 5 1/2.
Fortunately our friends at Ilford make post card paper 4x6 inch.

Getting film slit would be the easiest part. Backing paper and spools would be tricky. This was a early Kodak market, making roll film "cartridge" backs for glass plate cameras.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Spools aren't that hard. This is the 3D printer era. Any decent 3D printer bigger than the toy ones should be able to print 116, 616, 118, 122 and 124 spools. There was a 126 once, too, before it was a drop-in cartridge.

 

[Oren Grad]

The current Ilford ULF/special size open-order period offers, in addition to many cut sheet formats, long rolls in the following widths:

46 mm (HP5+)
70 mm (HP5+)
9 cm (FP4+)
5 inch (FP4+)
8 inch (HP5+)
10 inch (FP4+)
20 inch (HP5+)

Buy an old aerial camera and a forklift, or put on your custom-design-and-fabrication hat or ante up $$$$-$$$$$ to the custom fabrication shop of your choice to build a long-roll mega-back for you, and have at it!

 

[138S]

Today 100mm wide film is still sold for indistrial radiography in up to 100m rolls, FOMADUX and INDUX

https://www.foma.cz/en/ndt-catalogue

If one likes X-Ray film for shooting then this may be a cheap choice...

 

[warden]

Buy an old aerial camera and a forklift

 

[Bob S]

Things you learn, apart from the military, I didn't know they had made roll film in large format. I see Kodak made an even bigger folding camera the 4A with 4 1/4 x 6 1/2 inch image. They didn't dare to call it a "pocket" camera. What's next, will someone launch a kickstarter for a Polaroid conversion that uses large format roll film?

Rollei made a 9” roll film photogrammetric camera. So did Zeiss and many others. These were not necessarily military. Many commercial aerial photographers used the 45 Aero Technika EL for their aerial work. But then so did EG&G for recording tests for the military. The ones on the Space Shuttle were bought for the Shuttle missions by the Navy.

 

[JPD]

Rollei made a 9” roll film photogrammetric camera.

They also made prototypes for a 9x9 (cm) camera, based on the Rolleiflex Standard. Too bad it didn't go into production. They would certainly have made a plate back and holders that could take 9x12 sheet film.

 

[AgX]

There are large format roll cameras made until a few years ago. Two are the Linhof Aero Technika and the Aero Technika EL. Both used either sheet or Super Rollex and Rapid Rollex roll film backs as well as the Techno Rollex back or 5” aerial roll film on modified NATO spools. If you Google Pinky Nelson you can see a picture of him hand holding the EL version with the 5” roll back during a Space Shuttle mission.
The Library of Congress also used the 5” vacuum roll back on copy stands for duplicating.

Yes, my first thought too were such aerial cameras. However the larger formats as 4x5 and larger are not on roll-film, but on spooled-film. So much about terminology... No idea what the OP meant...

 

[narsuitus]

No idea what the OP meant...

I meant roll-film like 120 or 122 or 127, or 220. I have no idea what spooled-film is.

 

[AgX]

Spooled film is any film on a spool. However as there is already spooled film with a paper back, spooled film can depict te rest....

 

[narsuitus]

@AgX

Thanks !

 

[DREW WILEY]

Well, now that we know what was really being requested, how about a Fuji GF 6X7 - That's a quite recent fold-up rangefinder that takes 120 film, and still commonly available, provided you rob a bank first. Otherwise, there's an abundance of older 120 cameras at more realistic pricing.

 

[narsuitus]

No, please do not misunderstand me.

I already use 120 medium format roll-film in 6x6, 6x7, and 6x9cm cameras.

I also use a 120 medium format roll-film back in my 4x5 inch large format cameras.

I am asking about the availability of large format cameras that would allow me to capture 8x14cm images (or larger) on roll-film.

I find it strange that large format cameras and large format roll-film existed in the early 1900s but it is impossible to find modern ones now.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Strange? What advantage is there to large sizes of roll film for ordinary photography? Yes, military and surveillance applications, where precise heavy equipment can realistically be accommodated, along with massive budgets to match. And as film grain, resolution, and lenses have gotten so much better over time, even 120 roll film will handle more detail than large film once did. Where would be the market? I shoot and print 8x10 and 4x5 personally, and want sheet film per se, as stiff and dimensionally stable as possible. What good would be a roll back heavier when loaded with film than the camera itself? One notable photographer of many several back who did use aerial cameras in the field (as well as in the air) was Bradford Washburn. You might or might not be familiar with him, but the gear certainly wasn't what people typically regard as portable. And at today's large format film pricing, who could afford to machine-gun with it? So the answer is both yes and no. All kind of things can be done. But at what level of cost and effort? At current pricing, 8x10 color film is running close to $30 per shot with processing. I can hardly imagine what a minimum-order spool cut would run. Black and white is nowhere near as bad, but still way more than it was not very long ago.

 

[Donald Qualls]

I find it strange that large format cameras and large format roll-film existed in the early 1900s but it is impossible to find modern ones now.

Large roll film (that you'd handle like modern 120) existed primarily because, at first, prints were contact prints, and the film of, say, 1895 wouldn't stand up to a lot of enlargement. As film resolution and lenses improved, enlargement became practical, then common, then universal -- and both film and cameras got smaller and, relative to what people earned, cheaper. We call 120 "medium format" because 127 was "small format" -- and 35mm was originally "miniature" film. But after Leica and a couple others demonstrated that tiny film (image area just an inch by inch and a half -- though that was double the standard movie film frame) was practical to produce easily viewed images by enlargement, large cameras and large film were no longer required.

By 1938, picture postcards could be made by enlarging 35mm negatives, with image quality similar to the 122 contact prints of 1918 -- and since 35mm film was much cheaper (per frame) than 122, the cameras were smaller and lighter, and eventually cheaper, the big cameras with big roll film gradually disappeared.

When I first learned to operate an adjustable camera (summer of 1969) the camp counselor who taught photography had a 116 folder (or bigger -- this was fifty years ago, and I didn't measure), and it wasn't hard to get film for then -- but it was clearly on the way out. The camp store sold film, but it was 120, 620, 127, 35mm, and 126 -- and I think possibly Polaroid Swinger film (Type 20?).

I've seen a 4" roll back that fit a Speed Graphic -- paper backed, wood core spools with steel ends, might have been 124 size. Probably took six, or at most eight exposures on a roll, vs. 36 on a 35mm roll, in a camera that could fit inside the bellows of the Speed. An SLR for 4x5 was the size of a small enlarger, weighed, what, fifteen pounds? An SLR for 35mm is, well, what we now think of when you say SLR. Spotmatic. OM-1. Nikkormat. etc.

As demand dropped off, it became unprofitable to try to keep fresh film on shelves for the few cameras still in use that needed 116/616, 122, or 124. When they couldn't make (enough) money on a format any more, the Great Yellow Father stopped cutting, rolling and selling it.

 

[Bob S]

No, please do not misunderstand me.

I already use 120 medium format roll-film in 6x6, 6x7, and 6x9cm cameras.

I also use a 120 medium format roll-film back in my 4x5 inch large format cameras.

I am asking about the availability of large format cameras that would allow me to capture 8x14cm images (or larger) on roll-film.

I find it strange that large format cameras and large format roll-film existed in the early 1900s but it is impossible to find modern ones now.

Linhof Technorama 617 Slll is still a currently made roll film camera.

 

[DREW WILEY]

That's still 120 film, Bob. He clarified his question by stipulating he has something much wider in mind.

 

[Bob S]

Strange? What advantage is there to large sizes of roll film for ordinary photography? Yes, military and surveillance applications, where precise heavy equipment can realistically be accommodated, along with massive budgets to match. And as film grain, resolution, and lenses have gotten so much better over time, even 120 roll film will handle more detail than large film once did. Where would be the market? I shoot and print 8x10 and 4x5 personally, and want sheet film per se, as stiff and dimensionally stable as possible. What good would be a roll back heavier when loaded with film than the camera itself? One notable photographer of many several back who did use aerial cameras in the field (as well as in the air) was Bradford Washburn. You might or might not be familiar with him, but the gear certainly wasn't what people typically regard as portable. And at today's large format film pricing, who could afford to machine-gun with it? So the answer is both yes and no. All kind of things can be done. But at what level of cost and effort? At current pricing, 8x10 color film is running close to $30 per shot with processing. I can hardly imagine what a minimum-order spool cut would run. Black and white is nowhere near as bad, but still way more than it was not very long ago.

Not true. After the first shuttle flight on the. Shuttle flight the Navy told us that with the Hasselblads on the Shuttle they could see their was something there. With LInhof they could tell what it was.

 

[Bob S]

That's still 120 film, Bob. He clarified his question by stipulating he has something much wider in mind.

It’s as close to 8 x 14 cm he is going to find.