| Author |
Message |
    
CJ
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 02:33 am: | 
|
Has anybody built a view camera from unused camera parts?
I'm aware that there are plans out there for building your own view camera, and I'm wondering if it would be possible to do this, either for 4x5-type film, or 120.
-CJ |
Winfried
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 04:20 am: |
|
I am afraid you can't too much of the components except for the shutter/lens assembly. A view camera has a completely different principle of design and therefore hardly anything will be left if you 'convert' a normal camera to a view camera. |
CJ
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 05:15 am: |
|
Thank you Winfried.
I should clarify: I'm interesting in cobbling together a view camera from the lens and shutter taken from an RF. That is, I'd take the lens + shutter assembly, put them at one end of a wooden box of some type, and fashion some sort of film holder and ground glass at the opposite end. Thing is, I don't know enough theory to determine if there would be enough light left for the film at the opposite end, and all those other things that people who undertake to construct a view camer know... :-) |
rick
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 07:16 am: |
|
the trick is the small size. all a view camera is, is a film holder, a lens holder and a bellows, with a provision for moving the 2 holders closer and farther from each other, and tilting each one independently. with a 40-50mm lens from a typical RF camera, you only have less than 2 inches of space to fit the bellows, and that doesn't leave much room for tilting or for the hardware required to hold it all together. also, the lens is only designed to cover a 45mm diameter circle, so you won't use much of a 4x5 or 6x6 negative with it.
Unless you want to use it only for extreme close-up work, in which case you can give yourself a bit more space in the middle (and the image circle will grow a bit too) |
M Currie
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 09:18 am: |
|
I've heard of people converting old Polaroids to use sheet film. That wouldn't give you tilt and shift, but the format is pretty close already. |
Jan Dvorak
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 09:45 am: |
|
CJ,
Rick's post just about said at all. The only thing I would add is that using a longer lens (i.e. 90mm to 200mm) would not work either. All lenses designed for 35mm have a small image circle; after all they are designed to cover a 24x36mm frame.
All the best,
Jan |
Charles Fallis
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 03:10 pm: |
|
You might not have too much difficulty transforming an old box camera into some sort of a view camera. I doubt that you are going to have any luck converting a rangefinder though.
Maybe the front half of an old folding camera could be used for this too. It occurs to me that Kodak made a few cameras in obsolete formats that amounted to large format film on a roll. These are generally very inexpensive now, since the film is so hard to come by. It probably wouldn't be too difficult to build a new wooden body that can take a sheet film holder, and attach the bellows, lens/shutter and rail mechanism from one of these cameras to it. |
Peter Wallage
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 04:35 pm: |
|
If you want to make a medium format view camera why start with a rangefinder? Presumably you'd be using the ground glass screen for focusing. I would think that any good lens and shutter from almost any old 6x9 camera would give you more than enough coverage for swings and tilts on a 6x6 format. You might consider making it a monorail (yes, they've been home made with a wooden rail as well as with a metal one). That way you'd find it easier to satisfy the Scheimpflug relationship using swings and tilts than with a baseboard or box design - and if you don't want swings and tilts why bother with a view camera?
Peter |
CJ
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 04, 2005 - 07:36 am: |
|
Thank you all for your info & comments.
The thing that really entrances me about view cameras is the tilt ability--it's just darned cool to me.
And while we're on the subject for the moment: In reading Ansel Adams's books, I've gathered that he was never a fan of convergence (in other words, a "vanishing point" if I recall my 7th grade art class).
I'm curious: Why did he make such an effort to eliminate convergence? When we look up at a tall building, the sides appear to converge. Same with the shoulders of a long highway. To an amateur like me, and for all of his f/64-esque values of realism, I'm surprised that he'd seek to straighten stuff like that out.
-CJ |
Peter Wallage
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 04, 2005 - 02:55 pm: |
|
I agree with you about convergence and perspective. I like a lot of Ansel adams' pictures, but the f/64 school wasn't really realism at all. It was psuedo realism. The realism is that our eyes actually have very little depth of field, but when we look at a landscape they refocus almost instantaneously as we move our eyes to move the focus point so everything from close-up to infinity 'seems' to be sharp. Which is why the Scheimpflug relationship was popular when view cameras were popular. |
