Thinking of taking the jump - building a 8x10 Sliding Box camera.

[hoffy]

Howdy Folks,

One of my goals as a photography enthusiast has been to build my own camera. Its been a goal for a few years now, but as you can guess, I haven't acted on it yet.

I have decided to see how I go. I have modest woodworking skills, having built a few projects from scratch over the years (including a routed MDF 4 lane slot car track), but this will be my first project where I will be tackling dove tail joints, well, since high-school at least.

As per the title, I want to start with a sliding box camera, as I think it would be the simplest way to get going. It should have the least amount of hardware and I won't have to deal with bellows. Yes, it will be big and bulky, but that is half of the attraction! Also, I plan to shoot wet/dry plate tintypes predominantly with it.

My plan is to start with Radiata Pine as a first build and if everything goes to plan, build one out of something a bit more stable and exotic.

My main area of concern is how to deal with the holder/ground glass end. I think a few holders will be the first purchase and I will build the camera from there. Then there is the question of focal lengths and extensions....boy, I got a lot to go!

As I start the planning phase, I hope to gather as much info as possible. I have done some searching on here and on LFF and have found a few bits and pieces, but a lot of it refers to mailing lists/news groups/Yahoo pages that are a bit slow to load or basically dead.

So, first things first, is there anyone out there who want to share their experiences with me? What mistakes can I learn from?

Cheers

 

[pdeeh]

When I made my sliding-box cameras (foamcore) I read up loads of stuff here and at LFPF, but in the end found the best way was simply to start with a holder and work from there. The only vaguely tricky bit was making a holder for the ground glass that was close enough to the "t-distance" (the measurement between the front plane of the film holder and the film plane).

The one thing I found most useful was to "prototype" one out of spare cardboard before I started. I found it easier to then to see what I had to do in the final material.

I'd encourage you to get on and make a start. There's only so much you can learn from reading up, and too much info can make the whole thing seem more complex than it really is.

As a for-instance, I used a couple of picture hooks glued to each side of the inner box and "scrunchies" (the things people use to hold their hair in a ponytail) to hold the ground glass holder and the film holders in tight.

Keep it simple and have some fun

 

[pdeeh]

Oh and making a ground glass itself is a cinch - look up Ian Grant's "How-To" article on the subject here at APUG.

 

[hoffy]

Cheers. Do you remove the Ground glass when you insert the holder?

As for making the ground glass, from what I have seen, its not too difficult. That is the least of my worries!

I also need to think about lenses. Obviously, focal distance is going to come into the final measurements.

 

[pdeeh]

Yes, ground glass out, holder in.
The problem with my foamcores is that the interference fit isn't great so there is the possibility of altering focus when I do that, though in practice it doesn't matter too much for me as my sort of snaps aren't predicated on deadly sharp focus and/or very narrow depth of field even if the focus does shift a touch.

With a more carefully made camera, especially one constructed with materials that are more rigid and amenable to precision, this wouldn;t be so much of a problem, if at all

I know Ned has made a foamcore camera which doesn;t suffer from "slop" in this way, so the problem at my end is lack of skill rather than poor materials!

even so, using proper tree-wood should mean not running into such horrors.

As for lenses, I lucked into a pair of deadly sharp Agfa Repromaster lenses (a 213/9 and 150/9) with a densitometer thrown in all for under £15 delivered (ebay) before I started out. The 213 definitely covers 8x10, the 150 doesn't quite.

But for starting efforts, why not try any old meniscus lens you can find in surplus or ebay or wherever?

 

[Steve Smith]

Starting with the film holder is definitely a good idea. Also, I would consider using finger joints instead of dovetails. Much easier and definitely strong enough - unless you want to master the art of dovetail cutting.


Steve.

 

[Jim Jones]

Steve is right about finger joints instead of dovetails. Even easier is to glue the pieces together and then cut slots for splines. Plywood is more stable than tree wood, and can be much lighter in some applications.

 

[NedL]

My foamcore sliding box camera doesn't suffer from focus shifting when swapping the ground glass for the holder, but it is "sticky". When it gets warm the foamcore expands, which makes focus difficult. Then the inner box doesn't slide smoothly, I have to push or pull on each side separately and it tends to "jump". This does make the camera a bit frustrating and tedious to use. I agree about starting with the holder, whether the holder is purchased or homemade, start there and build everything else around it.

Here's a link to (there was a url link here which no longer exists).

 

[John Koehrer]

You could search the bay for a GG holder, don't mess with the T distance and just modify it to fit your camera.

 

[Steve Smith]

You could search the bay for a GG holder, don't mess with the T distance and just modify it to fit your camera.

That is the way a lot us built our first cameras. If you can make a box to keep the darkness in with a lens at one end which focuses on the ground glass on the other end, you have just made a camera!


Steve.

 

[LJH]

T-distance isn't very difficult to achieve accurately on a decent router table.

 

[hoffy]

OK, as in a Graphlex type holder?

Also, what sort of tolerances are we looking at with T distance?

 

[pdeeh]

t-distances & tolerances:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

http://ssfilmholders.com/?page=dimensions