Very very very panoramic camera

nuckabean · Dec 27, 2008

I had an idea (which I'm sure has been done before) to build a camera that would use a roll of 135 film to take one exposure. Is this an impossible act? it seems like it could be done with a pinhole far enough from the film plane or a very long lens that's set on infinity (to avoid using bellows). Any advice on doing something like this?

brofkand · Dec 27, 2008

Well, you would obviously need to load and unload the camera in perfect darkness, and the camera would need to be both very long and very wide to provide a pinhole enough depth to cover the entire length of the strip.

keithwms · Dec 27, 2008

How about affixing 35mm film in an LF film holder. Maybe you could deploy one of those film strip mounts for scanning as a way to hold it flat and draw it taut. I don't think registry will be much of an issue if you are willing to stop down a bit more than usual.

I will just say this, I [stupidly] taped some roll film into an LF holder and it kinda worked but it made a mess. I'll not repeat that exercise!

Compositonally, I suspect that you'll be hard pressed to come up with a compelling composition beyond a ratio of 6:24 or so.

Just for your amusement, here is a silly shot that I did at Arlington cemetary using a kaidan 360 on my rb67, using astia. What you get is a circular image on the film, then you scan that and run it through "dewarping" software.

amuderick · Dec 27, 2008

Look for information on the Globuscope, SpinShot 35S, or the Larscan. The latter is my current camera building project. All are slit-scan rotating cameras. The longer the lens, the larger the piece of film which is required for a 360. The longer the lens, the smaller the vertical angle of coverage on the film.

removed account4 · Dec 27, 2008

you could make a camera obscura ...

AgX · Dec 27, 2008

This has been done in the fifties in the `Horizoncamera´ by the Dutch company Oude Delft.
A spooled film was running via a full-circle loop, emulsion inwards. Coaxial, placed a bit higher, was the lens, of a periscopic type (very special...), which projected a radial 360° image onto the film. Thus giving an exposure of nearly (due to the opening of the loop) 360° horizontally.

I got no idea though how to resemble such a lens with amateur means.

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Dec 27, 2008

A full roll of 24x36 (36exp) is at least 1,3 meters wide (4,2ft or 51in), so you would need a lens with an illumination circle of at least that size to expose all the film at once. This does not resolve to a specific focal lens, but let's say that if you wanted a "normal" lens, it would probably have to be somewhere around 1500mm. (A normal lens for 20x24 ULF starts around 800mm)

The other option would be to use a slit mechanism, as you can find in Cirkut cameras or photo-finish cameras.

The camera obscura solution would definitely be the most economical solution.

pauliej · Dec 27, 2008

Do a search for Lookaround Camera. Also try panoramacamera.us/35mmfilm and you should find interesting stuff. I hope this helps you.

paulie

removed account4 · Dec 27, 2008

3"* focal length will give you the image circle of a pinhole ...
i think one of the morell books explains how to turn a room into
a camera ...

have fun!

Stephen Frizza · Dec 29, 2008

there is a gentleman in Australia who built a camera that takes razor sharp panoramics where the frame size is the complete length on one roll of 120 film. it looks awesome his name is Mick turner
Dead Link Removed

this is the only link of the internet i can find showing images he has created with his hand made camera. sadly they dont do any justice compared to viewing his transparencies on a light box.

Very very very panoramic camera

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