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

[dirkfletcher]

What size Helicoid do you use?

The black camera with the modern 65mm SA needed a 65/65mm helical to get the rear element to fit. I was able to use a much smaller 52/42 for the older 47mm SA. It’s really a small lens, much smaller than the modern 47mm (non XL) and only a bit larger than the f/8 version.
Dirk

 

[awty]

The black camera with the modern 65mm SA needed a 65/65mm helical to get the rear element to fit. I was able to use a much smaller 52/42 for the older 47mm SA. It’s really a small lens, much smaller than the modern 47mm (non XL) and only a bit larger than the f/8 version.
Dirk

Actually Dirk I was wondering how much focus you get from infinity?
I'm going to make a compact 6x9 using a film back and a little 65mm Angulon. The helicoid I ordered is M42, but only has 5mm of focus, hopefully it will be enough. Don't need to focus anything more than a meter.

 

[dirkfletcher]

Actually Dirk I was wondering how much focus you get from infinity?
I'm going to make a compact 6x9 using a film back and a little 65mm Angulon. The helicoid I ordered is M42, but only has 5mm of focus, hopefully it will be enough. Don't need to focus anything more than a meter.

Hey Paul, That should do it, just spend some time and get it placed at the ideal distance so you can use the entire 5mm of movement. I’m using 17mm helicals but I don’t always hit infinity perfectly at the end of the focus mount. This camera in particular will focus past infinity and it will actually focus much closer than 6 feet but I only indexed it to 6 feet. I feel like I’ll shoot it mostly at infinity and 12 feet a majority of the time.
Dirk

 

[awty]

Thanks Dirk.
It just arrived and looks like it will do the job.
I have a Plaubel roll film holder and adaptor plate I will refit to a aluminium box. Then have several options to fitting the helical, then a M42 body cap I will fit the little 65mm lens to.
Figure I will shim to get to infinity, then I will have 5mm of focus. Good thing is it only has a quarter turn throw. I was worried it would need more than that.

 

[awty]

After making the last 6x9 Zeiss conversion with a 65mm lens for someone, I realized how cool these little Zeiss conversions are. I had long wanted a ‘smallish’ camera with a ‘largish’ neg which would be ideal as travel companion (if we ever get back to traveling again…).

At first I was thinking about using a 6x9 Graflok back, but by the time you added the roll film back, the camera becomes more like a cube or box due to the way the film plane is directly in front of both the feed and take up spools. Using a Zeiss camera body with the film plane at the back of the body and the spools to the sides (and kinda in front) really helps the finished product be a bit less boxy and a little more ‘camera’ shaped.

To keep the camera as small as possible and ideal for handheld shooting, I used a single coated 47mm f/5.6 Super Angulon, this lens is remarkably small, especially compared to the modern, multicoated 47mm f/5.6 (non-XL) Super Angulon. The older single coated version was only designed to cover 6x9 which I have to assume keeps it nice and tidy. The front filter thread is only 49mm and the rear element is small enough to fit inside a small focusing helical. This was key as the lens board had to be recessed inside the camera body a bit for the focus to be work, the larger helical that I usually use would not fit into the smaller 6x9 camera body. The camera will focus from infinity to well under 6 feet!

After stripping off the 85 year old paint and leather from the camera, a gorgeous stamped steel camera body emerged. It was just too pretty to cover up with fresh paint or new leather so I gave it a good cleaning and buffed it out as best I could. The black accessories and lens mount look great on the polished silver camera body, I could be more happy with how this camera project turned out.

I’m looking forward to shooting a bunch of 6x9 this fall and winter.

There are more pictures of the camera and some other test shots on Flickr if you want to check them out: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dirkfletcher/albums.
View attachment 284569 View attachment 284568 View attachment 284570 View attachment 284566 View attachment 284567

Great looking camera, love the silver and black. I have an old Kodak 616 folder I could convert, will be close to 612 aspect ratio......just need to save up for a 47mm lens.
The photos are awesome, even better with camera you made yourself.

 

[dirkfletcher]

Thanks for your kind words on the images. I’m really excited about this camera. Your method is exactly what I do, build it a tad short then shim the lens into the perfect spot. Good luck on the camera, share some pics of it when it’s done, I’d love to see how it turns out!
Dirk

 

[Ron (Netherlands)]

Building an 1850's sliding box camera. The camera is very simple, however I tried to build it like they did in the old days
I've uploaded the process into the DIY section of the LF forum; seems adequate just to place a hyperlink instead of copies in this thread:

https://www.largeformatphotography....-in-trying-to-build-a-1850-sliding-box-camera

 

[awty]

Building an 1850's sliding box camera. The camera is very simple, however I tried to build it like they did in the old days
I've uploaded the process into the DIY section of the LF forum; seems adequate just to place a hyperlink instead of copies in this thread:

https://www.largeformatphotography....-in-trying-to-build-a-1850-sliding-box-camera

Excellent Ron. You have great wood working skills.

 

[Ron (Netherlands)]

Excellent Ron. You have great wood working skills.

Many thanks Paul, appreciate you visited and liked the info in the link!

 

[odonata]

When the pandemic hit last year, I was looking for some interesting projects to keep me busy as I spent my evenings isolated in my apartment. I had always admired some of the unique camera builds that people were building in these forums so I decided to take a shot at doing that.

I found an old 6x9 Zeiss Ikonta folding camera on eBay for $24.95 that had a frozen shutter & fungus in the lens as my base camera to build off of.

I decided that I would use this project to try to learn how to design & 3D print the replacement lens mount to put one of my large format lenses on the front of the camera. I chose my Nikkor-SW 65mm f/4. I was hoping that this might produce images similar to my Fuji GSW6800 III rangefinder. Instead of trying to draw the lens mount with a mouse and some kind of drafting program, I decided to use the OpenSCAD programming language. This allowed me to set size & length variables for various design elements at the top of the program and do small millimeter micro adjustments that propagated throughout the entire object when modified.

Since I had never built a camera or 3D printed anything, I made a lot of newbie mistakes. Here's an early crude design with a lens mount like a pipe flange & way too many extraneous supports that had to be broken off and filed down. It was tedious & ugly so a lot of future design iterations were focused on making those disappear.

I attached an inexpensive projector helicoid to the front of the mount, velcroed an old 6x6 TLR fresnel screen to the film plane & used a loupe to try to get the length of my lens mount correct for infinity focus at minimum extension. If it's not obvious that I'm just making stuff up as I go along, I am.

The best part of this project is I learned a lot about 3D printing & the OpenSCAD language as I refined my designs.

Clamping it snuggly together & pinning it in place with stainless steel pins. I lined the inside with black telescope flocking. This is exciting! I wonder if it will actually take a decent photo...

The finished product with a Horseman viewfinder attached to the top. Time to do some test photos!

The following are just some test snapshots from a couple of rolls I took to see if I had actually managed to make a working camera or not. In this photo, I'm building a small wooden sailboat so I took a self portrait under the glaring light of a halogen lamp.

Diesel, Dwight & Burgard near Brookhaven, Mississippi.

The family farm outside of Kentwood, Louisiana.

My friend Cara who was kind enough to do all of the 3D printing for me since I didn't have a printer or the space to put one. Without her help, I don't think I would have gotten this project done.

Based on the test photos, I'm going to label this particular project a success. It kept me from going stir crazy while I was alone in my apartment for months and I learned a few new skills that I think will be useful moving forward. Best of all, it didn't cost much because I already had the large format lens, the viewfinder & the 3D printing was free.

 

[MattKing]

Great story - thanks for posting it.
And welcome to posting on Photrio.

 

[macfred]

@odonata I agree with Matt ! Your photographs are remarlable too - I like the wooden sailboat very much.

 

[odonata]

@odonata I like the wooden sailboat very much.

Thanks! The sailboat is my project to keep me entertained when I'm not cooped up in my apartment. A friend of mine cleared out some space in his barn for me to build a boat. You can see his Morris Frances 26 in the background. The boat I'm building is a stretched Welsford Walkabout. Normally it's 5 meters but I'm stretching it by 12.5% to make room for an additional rowing station & because I wanted to use the larger 3-sail plan with a jib instead of the standard main/mizzen configuration. The plans called for using Okoume for most of it but I decided to make it more time consuming by milling a bunch of local wood. So it's primarily made of sassafras, black locust, cypress and older growth southern yellow pine for the masts, booms & spars. With a retractable centerboard, it has a really shallow draft. So hopefully I'll be able to lug some B&W cameras to some interesting places in the near future. As I get older, it's preferable to float my equipment to a remote location than it is to backpack it there.

 

[macfred]

Thanks! The sailboat is my project to keep me entertained ...

Thank you very much for your detailed informations about your project - I enjoy this.
I have a small cruisin' dinghy (5,3 meter - pine and oak); bought it used and renovated it.

 

[awty]

When the pandemic hit last year, I was looking for some interesting projects to keep me busy as I spent my evenings isolated in my apartment. I had always admired some of the unique camera builds that people were building in these forums so I decided to take a shot at doing that.

I found an old 6x9 Zeiss Ikonta folding camera on eBay for $24.95 that had a frozen shutter & fungus in the lens as my base camera to build off of.

I decided that I would use this project to try to learn how to design & 3D print the replacement lens mount to put one of my large format lenses on the front of the camera. I chose my Nikkor-SW 65mm f/4. I was hoping that this might produce images similar to my Fuji GSW6800 III rangefinder. Instead of trying to draw the lens mount with a mouse and some kind of drafting program, I decided to use the OpenSCAD programming language. This allowed me to set size & length variables for various design elements at the top of the program and do small millimeter micro adjustments that propagated throughout the entire object when modified.

Since I had never built a camera or 3D printed anything, I made a lot of newbie mistakes. Here's an early crude design with a lens mount like a pipe flange & way too many extraneous supports that had to be broken off and filed down. It was tedious & ugly so a lot of future design iterations were focused on making those disappear.

I attached an inexpensive projector helicoid to the front of the mount, velcroed an old 6x6 TLR fresnel screen to the film plane & used a loupe to try to get the length of my lens mount correct for infinity focus at minimum extension. If it's not obvious that I'm just making stuff up as I go along, I am.

The best part of this project is I learned a lot about 3D printing & the OpenSCAD language as I refined my designs.

Clamping it snuggly together & pinning it in place with stainless steel pins. I lined the inside with black telescope flocking. This is exciting! I wonder if it will actually take a decent photo...

The finished product with a Horseman viewfinder attached to the top. Time to do some test photos!

The following are just some test snapshots from a couple of rolls I took to see if I had actually managed to make a working camera or not. In this photo, I'm building a small wooden sailboat so I took a self portrait under the glaring light of a halogen lamp.

Diesel, Dwight & Burgard near Brookhaven, Mississippi.

The family farm outside of Kentwood, Louisiana.

My friend Cara who was kind enough to do all of the 3D printing for me since I didn't have a printer or the space to put one. Without her help, I don't think I would have gotten this project done.

Based on the test photos, I'm going to label this particular project a success. It kept me from going stir crazy while I was alone in my apartment for months and I learned a few new skills that I think will be useful moving forward. Best of all, it didn't cost much because I already had the large format lens, the viewfinder & the 3D printing was free.

Excellent build. The view finder is huge!

 

[odonata]

I have a small cruisin' dinghy (5,3 meter - pine and oak); bought it used and renovated it. View attachment 285375

That's a great looking boat. The photograph is excellent too. After programming computers all day, working on building a camera or building a boat is a nice change of pace. I also use the boat build as an excuse to break out the B&W cameras and take some progress photos. This picture was taken with the 1952 Zeiss Ikonta 523/2 that my dad brought back from Korea and gave to me as a kid to learn how to shoot with. I'm planing the birdsmouth mizzen mast, the main boom and top spar in this photo. Being an old camera that I was shooting with when I was 7, it doesn't take the greatest or sharpest pictures. But for nostalgic & sentimental reasons, I still like to take it out and run a few rolls through it occasionally:

Excellent build. The view finder is huge!

The viewfinder is kind of interesting because it was used on an old Horseman or Graflex style press view camera. It has a knob on the side that lets you zoom the view with settings for lens lengths from 65mm to 400mm for both 6x9cm & 4x5 film formats. In another "camera build" which was a real lightweight modification, I took the strap off of my ToyoView 45A II field camera, attached a couple of Camvate NATO rails to the side, clamped some handles to that & mounted the viewfinder on the top.

Once I had it setup like the photo above, I glued a small 100 millimeter ruler to the focusing bed. I then proceeded to focus it a 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10 meters & infinity for each of my lenses. So for my Fujinon 125mm I know that to focus at 3 meters I need to move the the bellows to the 60mm mark on the ruler. When I put a lens on the camera, I can focus quickly by looking at a small business card that has that particular lens' measurements on it. I then look through the viewfinder (which is zoomed to the length of the lens) and shoot. I mounted a cable release to one of the handles so I can press it with my thumb.

Would I recommend shooting with a handheld 3 kilo camera to anyone? No. Does it create superior pictures? Again no. Is it kind of fun to pretend that you're Weegee prowling around Manhattan in the 1930's with a press view camera? Absolutely! Here's a handheld 4x5 photo I shot of Faye & my daughter Olivia early one morning. Super slow shutter speed so it's a bit soft and has some blur but it was still fun to play with the setup. If nothing else it was a great conversation starter for a lot of curious young people who had never seen a camera like this:

 

[awty]

It's boxy, but it's good.
6x9film holder and a little 65mm f 6.8 Angulon.

 

[AgX]

How do you call this camera? The Angula ?

And I wonder where that box originates from. Art first glance it made me think of an electric-connector box, but then I realized it is from 3 not 2 parts.
The only thing I dislike are the cross-heads of the screws...

 

[awty]

How do you call this camera? The Angula ?

And I wonder where that box originates from. Art first glance it made me think of an electric-connector box, but then I realized it is from 3 not 2 parts.
The only thing I dislike are the cross-heads of the screws...

Hows "Plaubelang 69"?
Yes went to the local electronic store and bought an appropriate sized box.
If all works OK I might pretty it up, but I kinda like ugly cameras. The good thing is it's small and compact and very easy to handle.....and cheap.

 

[ced]

Paul it looks a gem of a cam!
AGX wonder when last you been to hardware stores but old type screws nowhere to be seen slot in round or flat heads (sign of the times).

 

[odonata]

If all works OK I might pretty it up, but I kinda like ugly cameras.

If you decide to pretty it up, all it needs is a couple of camera strap holders on one end and you've got a good copy of a Horseman 842 Convertible there. If you equate simplistic or functional with pretty, then that camera was gorgeous. Otherwise, not the sexiest camera ever produced. Definitely a "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" type of design. I like big negatives from small cameras so yours qualifies. I like it!

 

[awty]

If you decide to pretty it up, all it needs is a couple of camera strap holders on one end and you've got a good copy of a Horseman 842 Convertible there. If you equate simplistic or functional with pretty, then that camera was gorgeous. Otherwise, not the sexiest camera ever produced. Definitely a "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" type of design. I like big negatives from small cameras so yours qualifies. I like it!

It's what's on the inside that counts...hopefully that doesn't include light leaks.
I added a wrist strap and a tripod plate. Have a hand grip I could use and will need to make a adaptor plate to fit a view finder, but for now will keep it minimalist. The lens functions are all easy to see and accessible, can operate apperture, shutter cooking and firing just with my pointy finger.

 

[odonata]

It's what's on the inside that counts...hopefully that doesn't include light leaks.
View attachment 285664

Ha! Are you always this funny?

I’d love to see some photos it takes if it turns out to be as promising as it looks. The proof is always in the final results.

 

[AgX]

AgX wonder when last you been to hardware stores but old type screws nowhere to be seen slot in round or flat heads (sign of the times).

I can go by bike to the next DIY/hardware store and buy slit-head screws with sink-head, lenticular-head, half-round-head, in metric-thread and wood-thread. In steel and brass.

(Haven't been in a belgian hardware store for quite some years, maybe the situation is different there.)


I grew up with slit head screws. And I just thought about it, and I doubt that except for my AE-1 stuff I really had anything already containing cross-head screws until I left school. Maybe a subminiature japanese radio. But I had a tiny screwdriver with Philips-tip...

I started collecting screws and nails and such when I was a boy... So that I had such at hand when necessary. And still, before something finally goes into the waste, I strip it of everything most likely still useful in future..

 

[ced]

Well, I've resorted to buying small boxes of rusty screws when the opportunity rises at flea markets if & when they turn up.