Thanks. It's a good thing you ask about the country; where I am, it's unthinkable to order antyhing from outside the EU, since customs will add months to the delivery (and with no communication!) and hundreds to the price (it can more than double, it's not just sales tax).
Customs are the same in all EU, and VAT is quite the same.
I would not recommend to lie on the item value. if they get you, you're cooked.
Crap I missed this whole thing. I see it's closed now. What they plans after the Kickstarter orders are fulfilled. Are you selling this at retail?
Thanks for your comment! This is exactly what I hope will happen, and the driving force behind the Mercury project.I like this idea a lot, and hope to see these cameras and modules available for sale some day. This type of open-source approach could should lead to a blossoming of cottage industries making and marketing specific parts to add to the constellation of modules that begin with the Mercury. This is what the graphlock back was all about in the first place, but extending the mix-and-match capacity of large-format kit to include more of the Medium-Format lenses and related gear is an excellent idea.
It reminds to me the concept behind the Silvestri cameras (silvestricamera.it). The goal is to have a lighter and especially cheaper product.
I understand the rationale behind this project, and I think it would have been great at the time of film photography.
Now, with all the interest that I can have in this endeavour, I agree with @EdSawyer that this effort goes, somehow, in the wrong direction.
The film photography "ecosystem" is in danger not for want of film cameras, but for want of chemicals, laboratories, printers, film variety, specialized repairers. Film cameras will survive if the entire "film ecosystem" survives. A new camera, however interesting, imaginative, and revolutionary, is probably, in this particular "historical" juncture of film photography, a step in the wrong direction. In a few years, things might be very different and the project might be quite successful.
I wish you all success for this endeavour, but not without saying that, personally, I would have found more interesting a firm producing an equivalent of the Jobo drum processors, or a simple versatile drying cabinet, or a firm devoted to recreating by machining any spare part not any more available. Maybe an enlarger, a slide projector, especially for APS format. Maybe a firm which produces 126 and 110 cartridges.
For instance, a product which solves the single problem of using Instax material with decent real-glass lenses would be immediately useful for the photographic community. An "Instax evolution" camera (with another name obviously) obtained by accurately coupling a quality lens to an Instax camera. A simpler project with a possible wider audience, IMHO.
In any case, I wish your project all the best!
You can add your own bubble level, and with medium format backs you can use some available MF shift lenses, coupled with a special shutter.Any chance that a future iteration might have a bubble level and shift capability?
You can do exactly what you describe here using existing Mercury components, except for your idea for a coupled rangefinder. Someone will have to work on that.I was going to write the same. Diapositivo's post (above) is excellent, my feelings exactly.
As for the camera, i wish them all the best, but i can't understand what is the advantage compared to a normal large format camera -- which can also mount "any" lens and you can fit many kinds of different film formats at the back. The proposed "Universal" camera adds no rangefinders or reflex devices to bring something new to the table.
Also, it can't truly "mount any lens" because the lens requires to have a shutter. If the camera had a focal plane shutter then it would be really universal, but I agree that would make it an extremely difficult project.
Now, if i can make a suggestion, it would be -- a modern version of the Kodak Medalist camera. Allow people to mount old, good, inexpensive 6x9 or 6x7 or 6x6 lenses with shutter (for example, Agfa Solinar lenses for the Agfa folder cameras in their Compur or Prontor shutters; and the japanese equivalents of said cameras) on a camera that provides a viewfinder and a rangefinder. All this with the advantage of modern ABS materials making it a very light camera. You can also 3D print custom 'rangefinder cams' to cater for the many lenses out there, in the common focal lengths to be found: 75, 80, 100, 105mm. Make the back a simple 120 film back for 6x7 or 6x9 or 6x6 or 6x4.5, but make the film backs interchangeable so it is quick. Add the helicoid as well.
This leverages your advantages - lightweight construction, novel nylon 3D printed helicoid. This could give a durable camera without, for example, the disadvantages of bellows (which are a bit delicate). Nodda Duma (optical designer) is here and perhaps could tell you that designing a rangefinder is not complicated (as long as the viewfinder and rangefinders are separate)
So the end product would be a camera cheaper than a Mamiya 7 while being a medium format rangefinder that is extremely light and that can mount inexpensive lenses.
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