Hey there guys,
i see that the last post in this forum is 16 years ago. So im not sure if this is adequate. First things first, in my opinion nothing tops a wetplate, or an analog process on tintypes or something similar, the glossiness of the prints the amount of detail and the tones. I grew up with an analog camera from my parents, when i was really really young. 4-7 years or so im now 20 years old, so i also photographed a lot with digital. But when i 18 i switched back to analog. Recently i fell in love with Ultra Large format and the idea to seperate my subject from the background, even when they where a couple of meters away from me and my 4x5 wouldnt cut it. So i decided to work on an Ra4 reversal process to shoot 30x 40 instant positives. Because of the corona virus i couldnt finish my filmholder. So i siwthced to digital alternative. I saw a video from Zev hoover
, where he build a video camera with an 8x10 camera. I used a similar design and build myself a camera that has an image plane of 70x70 cm. The lense was a 914 mm f8 aerial imaging lense i found on etsy.
So there is the possibility to get a lot out of your old Ultra large format lenses, even when film and chemistry gets to expensive. You just need something white and dull what you can put on the inside of your ground glass and a camera that can shoot the projected image
I did a diy build, so my bellows are just some light tight fabric, i found online that i threw over the whole contraption. My image plane is just wood that i painted white.
here you can see the set up. On the left is the projection surface, on the right is my lense. the digital camera is later also covered with the black fabric to seal everything up.
I hope i could help a bit and probably inspire someone to try it out.
Have a nice day.
i see that the last post in this forum is 16 years ago. So im not sure if this is adequate. First things first, in my opinion nothing tops a wetplate, or an analog process on tintypes or something similar, the glossiness of the prints the amount of detail and the tones. I grew up with an analog camera from my parents, when i was really really young. 4-7 years or so im now 20 years old, so i also photographed a lot with digital. But when i 18 i switched back to analog. Recently i fell in love with Ultra Large format and the idea to seperate my subject from the background, even when they where a couple of meters away from me and my 4x5 wouldnt cut it. So i decided to work on an Ra4 reversal process to shoot 30x 40 instant positives. Because of the corona virus i couldnt finish my filmholder. So i siwthced to digital alternative. I saw a video from Zev hoover
, where he build a video camera with an 8x10 camera. I used a similar design and build myself a camera that has an image plane of 70x70 cm. The lense was a 914 mm f8 aerial imaging lense i found on etsy.
So there is the possibility to get a lot out of your old Ultra large format lenses, even when film and chemistry gets to expensive. You just need something white and dull what you can put on the inside of your ground glass and a camera that can shoot the projected image
I did a diy build, so my bellows are just some light tight fabric, i found online that i threw over the whole contraption. My image plane is just wood that i painted white.
here you can see the set up. On the left is the projection surface, on the right is my lense. the digital camera is later also covered with the black fabric to seal everything up.
I hope i could help a bit and probably inspire someone to try it out.
Have a nice day.
