Check out this insane home-built paper cardboard SLR with interchangeable lenses and waist-level finder by Alexander Domotenko! There are heaps of videos at the main project page and photos he’s made with in in this set on Flickr.
Too cool!
Tag: camera
DIY high capacity panoramic pinhole camera
John from Team Droid has great instructions, with step-by-step photos, for how to build a 30-shot 120 foamcore pinhole camera (phew!). He writes:
It all started on a long plane flight in the beginning of 2006. I was doodling in my Moleskine notebook and musing about pinhole cameras when and idea struck me. What if I made a camera that was panoramic and high capacity at the same time. I had been shooting with my 6×9 medium format pinhole (120 film) for a few weeks and was happy with the images but wished I could get more than eight shots a roll and have a wider field of view. What I thought was if I moved the pinhole closer to the film plane and rotated to aspect 90 degrees I could get dozens of images on a single roll of film and still get a pretty good sized negative. Turns out I can get about 30 images on a roll and even a quickly made pinhole will produce a satisfactory sharpness.
Check it out at Team Droid
Via the f295 Pinhole Photography Forum
Completely homemade folding pinhole camera
gabriel531 writes:
Here’s my most ambitious pinhole project yet – a 6×6 camera for 120 roll film with a bellows that can be pulled in to 50mm and extended to 90mm. The camera also has two pinholes – a 0.27 mm for the 50mm setting (equals f185) and a 0.36 mm pinhole for 90mm (equals f250).
This camera looks sweet! Unlike most folders, this one is built from scratch, rather than sticking a pinhole on an existing camera body. Great work!
The rest of this blog, Captured Starlight, is full of pinholey goodness. Check it out!
Read plans at Captured Starlight or discussion about it at f295 Pinhole Forum
Thanks to Paul Beard for the heads up!
Camera basics: shutter speed, aperture and ISO
This article on camera basics by Simon Mackie is probably the best I’ve ever seen. It explains shutter speed, aperture, and ISO in easy-to-understand language, has lots of example photos, and is only 5 pages long.
If you’re just starting out with photography or know someone who is, this is the perfect place to start.
Read article at PhotographyJam
Minolta 35mm to digital conversion how-to
I started out with a Minolta from 94′ or so that had a busted something or other. I also had a QuickCam express usb camera that would give us our ccd. After dissembling the quickcam with one screw and cutting the shutter from the Minolta we had done most of the work. Also we lost our IR filter when we ditched the old quickcam lens, so for now we get that sweet halo effect for free.
Read tutorial at how2.0
Via MAKE Blog
Horseman LD bellows/movement system for DSLRs
Horseman have just introduced their LD bellows system for Canon and Nikon digital SLRs.
"Whether you are using a Canon® or Nikon® digital single lens reflex, Horseman now gives you an opportunity to add full bellows functions—like in a medium or large format view camera. The Horseman LD comes in two models that accept Nikon or Canon DSLR bodies, maintaining all their normal functions. Up front, you can attach any standard medium or large format camera lens…"
This isn’t my ultimate fantasy ideal, which is movements controlled by a thumb pad on the back of the camera with one-touch zeroing of any plane, but still: HELL YEAH!
Coming soon are a conversion kit that will allow you to shoot 4×5 film and a slide adapter for pro digital backs.
It’s available now for about US $2,500.
Check it out at the Horseman product page or read the press release.
Via PhotographyBLOG
Homemade ultra-wide medium format camera
Check out Flickr member Zaphod Beeblebrox‘s homemade ultra-wide 6×9 camera! Makes me wonder why some of the ultra-wides sold by commercial manufacturers charge over a thousand US dollars for what’s essentially a lens board to film back spacer. (Though, in all fairness, they do throw in a spirit level.)
Via MAKE Blog
Return of the stereo camera
Oren Grad writes at The Online Photographer:
It looks as though the Horseman 3D camera spotted in prototype at PMA is really going to happen. The Japanese page is projecting delivery for this summer.
It’s official: Hasselblad XPan panoramic rangefinder discontinued
Well, the rumour that I’ve written about previously is true: Hasselblad are discontinuing the XPan panoramic rangefinder camera.
According to this article in the British Journal of Photography,
The decision follows new EU regulations—known as ROHS approvals—which come into effect on 01 July, designed to cut back on hazardous waste.
The approvals state that new electrical equipment cannot contain lead, cadmium or many other hazardous materials.
This means that lead soldering can no longer be used in the cameras’ circuit boards. The use of non-lead designs are more complex and would necessitate a total redesign of the cameras.
…
He [Hasselblad CEO Christian Poulsen] predicted supplies would run out in the next two months, but promised that support would continue for another 10 years.
While I won’t say that their reason for pulling it is outright bullshit, I will say that it certainly smells like it. I could be wrong, but I fail to see why a solder change would necessitate a redesign at all: simply put lead-free solder in the wave solderer that assembles the circuit boards and that’s that. We’re talking about solder. It carries electricity between points A and B. We’re not talking about the banning of resistors here.
The article does go on to say that Hasselblad are working on a "tilt-shift solution" and that more information will be available at the Photonika trade show this September, so maybe it’s not all crap news after all.
Read article at the British Journal of Photography’s Web site
Homemade anamorphic camera
f295 member Andrew has converted his homemade anamorphic pinhole camera—where instead of light going straight through the opening and striking the film head-on, the film is formed into a circle and the light is projected into its center from above—to use a lens, and the results are stunning!
Andrew writes, "To get a lens anamorphic camera with the least possible effort I modified the pre-existing ‘black box of hell’ pincam. The p_p_p_pinhole is mounted in the ‘lid’ so I just made a new lid and mounted an 85mm lens stripped off a dead Agfa Isolette…"
Continue reading and see photos of and plans for the camera here, and photos that he took with it here at the f295 DIY Forum.