My Home made 4x5 P&S Camera

nana sousa dias · Feb 1, 2010

I made this camera with parts of a Cambo Portrait 4 lenses camera, plywood and some other cheap parts, like drawer handles. The lens I used is a Schneider Super Angulon 47mm XL wich covers 4x5" without much room for movements. It's fixed focus, I fixed it for 3 meters (about 9 feet). For fixing the right focus distance, I used 3 plywood sheets wich I will change for an exotic wood one with the same thickness of the 3 sheets.

Colin Corneau · Feb 1, 2010

Cool! I'm not at all handy...couldn't hammer a nail to save my life.

Have you considered using this for street photography or more impromptu shooting?

2F/2F · Feb 1, 2010

Good job, and nice pic. Looks like a super fun camera!

How far were you from the cliffs?

mark · Feb 2, 2010

That is pretty. I am a sucker for nice woodwork. The image cool too. Good job on both accounts.

dwdmguy · Feb 2, 2010

Wow. Just wonderful work.

illumiquest · Feb 2, 2010

Nicely done! I wonder if you could find a better option for focusing? I was thinking the rail out of an RB67 might work well for a DIY camera, they're dirt cheap now.

Steve Smith · Feb 2, 2010

I don't think a focusing mechanism is needed for a 47mm lens on 5x4. I was considering hyperfocal focus for my 6x12 format camera with a 65mm lens (link below) but in the end I modified part of an Olympus lens to do the focusing.

What did you use for a viewfinder? I made mine from some spare lens elements.

Steve.

rafaelpeme · Feb 2, 2010

Beautiful camera.

Jeff Kubach · Feb 2, 2010

Excellant work on the camera and good image. Very impressive.

Jeff

nana sousa dias · Feb 2, 2010

Colin Corneau said:
Cool! I'm not at all handy...couldn't hammer a nail to save my life.

Have you considered using this for street photography or more impromptu shooting?

The camera was built with that in mind, too. I'll have to buy a box of HP5+ for that purpose...

nana sousa dias · Feb 2, 2010

2F/2F said:
Good job, and nice pic. Looks like a super fun camera!

How far were you from the cliffs?

I would say 9 feet. This lens is extremelly wide, perspective is completelly changed, with this lens. I love it!

nana sousa dias · Feb 2, 2010

mark said:
That is pretty. I am a sucker for nice woodwork. The image cool too. Good job on both accounts.

Thank you, Mark. This woodwork is just temporary, I will build a nice lens plate with exotic well varnished wood in the future.

nana sousa dias · Feb 2, 2010

dwdmguy said:
Wow. Just wonderful work.

Thank you.

nana sousa dias · Feb 2, 2010

illumiquest said:
Nicely done! I wonder if you could find a better option for focusing? I was thinking the rail out of an RB67 might work well for a DIY camera, they're dirt cheap now.

That crossed my mind but What I really wanted was a light point-&-shoot camera, fast to operate. This lens is now focused for 9 feet, wich give a really great DOF, even at f11.
This way, I can get the camera ready for shooting in seconds.

nana sousa dias · Feb 2, 2010

Steve Smith said:
I don't think a focusing mechanism is needed for a 47mm lens on 5x4. I was considering hyperfocal focus for my 6x12 format camera with a 65mm lens (link below) but in the end I modified part of an Olympus lens to do the focusing.

What did you use for a viewfinder? I made mine from some spare lens elements.

Steve.

Congratulations, Steve, your 6x12 camera is extremelly well designed and done.

For the viewfinder I used a lens wich you find in apartment doors, I don't know the name for that in english. It has a very wide angle, near 180º. Then, I found a PVC piece, used for conecting gardening irrigation PVC tubes and fixed the lens to it. Then I mounted an acessory shoe piece. This lens on 4x5 has a 120º angle and, as you know a viewfinder for this angle is expensive, so I built this one. The quality of the image, obviously is not great but the purpose of this viewfinder is just framing, I have a ground glass on this camera if I need to frame and compose more accuratelly.
I adjusted the frame with black tape, wich is not what you see on those camera photos, I tried first black paint but the tape is better. Here you have some photos of it.

This is the door viewfinder, as you can see, the screw on front part is very long, wich allows the viewfinder to be mounted on diferent doors thicknesses. This was very important to fix the viewfinder to the PVC device.

This is the PVC device to wich i fixed an accessory shoe piece.

This is the finished Viewfinder, wich I painted mate black and wich needs now a repainting!!!

These PVC tube unions (I don't know the right name for it in english) exists in several sizes, so I choosed one that matches the door viewfinder, I was a bit lucky on this, it looks like it was made for the viewfinder. This costed me a ridiculous 6 !!! And it works!!!

nana sousa dias · Feb 2, 2010

rafaelpeme said:
Beautiful camera.

Thank you, Rafael.

nana sousa dias · Feb 2, 2010

Jeff Kubach said:
Excellant work on the camera and good image. Very impressive.

Jeff

Thank you, Jeff.

Steve Smith · Feb 2, 2010

2F/2F said:
How far were you from the cliffs?

The camera was in the cave at the bottom of that middle mountain. The view's that wide!

Steve.

nana sousa dias · Feb 2, 2010

Steve Smith said:
The camera was in the cave at the bottom of that middle mountain. The view's that wide!

Steve.

Eheheheheh....

These are not mountains, they are cliffs at the beach, about 100 feet high.

2F/2F · Feb 2, 2010

nana sousa dias said:
I would say 9 feet. This lens is extremelly wide, perspective is completelly changed, with this lens. I love it!

Wow. Those three meters look like about 12 or 15!

I knew you had to have been pretty close, because the cliffs are not tiny in the picture. I know how hard it is to make mountains look enormous with a wide lens...you have to be CLOSE to do it. One of the reasons I generally do not like wides for broad landscapes: They exaggerate the distance of distant objects.

Leighgion · Feb 2, 2010

Pretty cool. Get a supply of parts and you could offer them in limited edition models.

nana sousa dias · Feb 3, 2010

2F/2F said:
Wow. Those three meters look like about 12 or 15!

I knew you had to have been pretty close, because the cliffs are not tiny in the picture. I know how hard it is to make mountains look enormous with a wide lens...you have to be CLOSE to do it. One of the reasons I generally do not like wides for broad landscapes: They exaggerate the distance of distant objects.

Well, I like to use super wide angles for landscape, the lenses I use most with my Pentax 67 are the 45mm or the 35mm and, for large format (4x5) 65 or 47. I think it is a matter of habitude, you can see some of my landscape photos here, most of them with these lenses: www.nanasousadias.com

nana sousa dias · Feb 3, 2010

Leighgion said:
Pretty cool. Get a supply of parts and you could offer them in limited edition models.

Good idea, but what I really want to do is photography, I have my own laboratory and studio, and I teach classes and workshops, besides, I'm a professional musician, composer and record producer, I don't have much time left!

salihonba · Feb 5, 2010

really great idea on viewfinder! I learned a lot from you, thank you.

r-brian · Feb 5, 2010

Neat camera.

Similar to something Clyde Butcher built a couple of years ago "Clyde-O-Wide - 4x5 This is a camera Clyde designed. It has no bellows, a fixed 38mm Super AngulonXL lens that has helical focus. He calls it his "snap-shot" camera". Somewhere on his site he describes it: a front and rear standard taped together with gaffer tape with a helical focus mechanism set for hyper-focal length for the lens.

Always wanted to build one but can't afford the x-wide lens needed.

My Home made 4x5 P&S Camera

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