Pix of your home-built cams, mods and creations here please (part 2)

Patrick Robert James · Sep 1, 2020

dirkfletcher said:
It’s a 520/15, to advance, you use frames 3, 5 1/2, 8, 10 1/2, 13, 15 1/2.

Where did you get that strap buckle/thingy you have in your pictures of the 6x12 on Flickr? I've been looking for one of those forever...

radiant · Sep 1, 2020

Here is my self designed and built 5x7" view camera with rotating back. Nikkor lens on Sinar board - DIY aperture adjustment. Also self built digitally controlled guillotine shutter.

Dan Fromm · Sep 1, 2020

Please tell us more about the aperture adjustment and shutter. Especially the shutter.

radiant · Sep 2, 2020

Dan Fromm said:
Please tell us more about the aperture adjustment and shutter. Especially the shutter.

The aperture adjustment is a knob that moves the sinar board aperture "handle" inside the lens. I had a chance to measure the correct apertures at kamerastore.com from a broken sinar shutter board. The adjustment is a bit rough so it is not comparable to any "real" aperture adjustment of course. But it does the job.

Shutter is a pretty classic guillotine shutter. It can be used for both two-blade (long exposure, open-wait-close) or single-blade (fixed time) use. The drop is controlled by small microcontroller/display/battery-unit and a hobby servo. I've analysed exposure times from high speed video and the two-blade can drop at 1/8 speed and then my fixed-time-blades start from that time so I can pretty much manage any exposure time with this system.

Originally I built this camera to shoot paper negatives which explains some allowances in design I've been shooting film negatives too with mostly success. Surely I've been looking for a lens with shutter because the allowances makes hard to really nail the exposure. I've been bracketing and experimenting - and that has been the purpose & fun on this project.

dirkfletcher · Sep 2, 2020

Patrick Robert James said:
Where did you get that strap buckle/thingy you have in your pictures of the 6x12 on Flickr? I've been looking for one of those forever...

It took me forever to find it but it’s called the LeHook, I bought that one years ago from http://www.leicagoodies.com/.
Dirk

Patrick Robert James · Sep 2, 2020

dirkfletcher said:
It took me forever to find it but it’s called the LeHook, I bought that one years ago from http://www.leicagoodies.com/.
Dirk

Thanks Dirk.

Nokton48 · Sep 9, 2020

Sinar Norma Handy Lowboy 1 by Nokton48, on Flickr

My fifth Norma is this homemade in my shop "Sinar Norma Handy Lowboy" which will get some use.

The lensboard cone and helical are stock Sinar Norma items in the Norma catalog.

With the Sinarsix and Schneider 65mm F8 Center Filter I am good to go.

dirkfletcher · Oct 4, 2020

Great looking camera Nokton!

Nokton48 · Oct 4, 2020

dirkfletcher said:
Great looking camera Nokton!

Thanks Dirk!

HRU test 2 Norma Handy Sinarsix MicX by Nokton48, on Flickr

Here's a quick test on 4x5" Fuji HR-U Xray film developed in Microdol-X.

I took this at f16 and Schneider says to close down two stops to eliminate barrel vignetting by the center filter. Next time f22 as a maximum. Camera was focused by homemade hyperfocal chart.

Next time I will also test Sinar Norma 103mm glass discs (in med yellow-green and also dark yellow) plus the center filter. Stabilizing the camera makes it about 100X more useful to me. This was an extremely windy pure sun key day about 12:00AM. The additional colored filtering should improve the foliage tonality.

ic-racer · Oct 4, 2020

Bolex intervalometer.

ic-racer · Oct 4, 2020

awty · Oct 4, 2020

ic-racer said:
Bolex intervalometer.
View attachment 256308

Very clever. So how fast can you set the mechanism?

TwiggerS · Oct 8, 2020

Seeing a lot of great modifications and DIY cameras! Just curious, will anyone sell your works to others? It seems to me that some projects can be manufactured...

ic-racer · Oct 8, 2020

awty said:
Very clever. So how fast can you set the mechanism?

I think around 1 per second. The drive unit is an off-the-shef 'servo tester' With some fiddling of the servo throw and frequency you can control both exposure and interval. It is a throttle mechanism from an RC car. The ball connector is metric and coincidentally matched the threads on the side Bolex for the shutter control button.

vickersdc · Jan 16, 2021

I've just finished building my first prototype spring back for my c1896 Underwood Instanto 1/2-plate camera. This means I'll be able to use my 4x5 DDS with it. The next project is to build another back for it so that the plate holder that I have (that should fit but doesn't) can be fitted to it.

Dan Fromm · Jan 16, 2021

Cute. How did you ensure that the film plane is in register with the ground glass' front surface?

vickersdc · Jan 16, 2021

Dan Fromm said:
Cute. How did you ensure that the film plane is in register with the ground glass' front surface?

I measured the distance to the film plane in the film holders and just cut a suitable thickness of wood. That was the only critical measurement, the rest could all be cut to size without too much trouble. I learnt quite a bit from doing this prototype and I'm glad I did it before doing the proper one for the 1/2-plate holder.

Dan Fromm · Jan 16, 2021

Thanks for the explanation.

awty · Jan 16, 2021

Nice work Dee, took me a bit to work out how it works, but figured it out. Planning on doing the same with my half plate, those cameras are so light and compact.

awty · Jan 16, 2021

ic-racer said:
I think around 1 per second. The drive unit is an off-the-shef 'servo tester' With some fiddling of the servo throw and frequency you can control both exposure and interval. It is a throttle mechanism from an RC car. The ball connector is metric and coincidentally matched the threads on the side Bolex for the shutter control button.

Is this still working ok? Have a 16H now and wouldnt mind making something similar.

Ian Grant · Jan 17, 2021

vickersdc said:
I've just finished building my first prototype spring back for my c1896 Underwood Instanto 1/2-plate camera. This means I'll be able to use my 4x5 DDS with it. The next project is to build another back for it so that the plate holder that I have (that should fit but doesn't) can be fitted to it.
View attachment 263972

I couldn't figure out how your back works initially, but on a second look I realised What lens are you using ?

Ian

vickersdc · Jan 17, 2021

Ian Grant said:
I couldn't figure out how your back works initially, but on a second look I realised What lens are you using ?

Ian

It's the original (I believe) lens - no idea what it is to be honest. Anyway, the back requires some 'refinement'! As you can see, I have a little bit of a light leak The exposure was total guess work as well, as the shutter does not have any markings on it. In some ways, I'm glad I actually got something out of it

Kyle M. · Jan 18, 2021

Nothing terribly complicated but not wanting to wait current shipping times I 3D printed a lens hood for my Yashica D. A lens cap is next on the list.

vickersdc · Jan 18, 2021

@Kyle M. - that's seriously impressive! Does it matter that the inside of the lens hood is not matt black?

Kyle M. · Jan 19, 2021

vickersdc said:
@Kyle M. - that's seriously impressive! Does it matter that the inside of the lens hood is not matt black?

i haven’t actually shot with it yet so I’m not sure how it will do. It was a free design I downloaded and the creator didn’t mention anything further being done to it. It’s definitely no shinier than the last plastic after market hood I had and that one was fine.

Pix of your home-built cams, mods and creations here please (part 2)

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