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Building your own view camera

2009-03-22 12:46:10.918276+00 by Dan Lyke 7 comments

Jon Grepstad has a lot of information on photography, including a book on building your own view camera and the building your own view camera FAQ that includes information on sizes and offsets of film holders and ground glass. He also links to Doug Bardell on building your own bellows, and Doug Bardell's pages have other notes of interest to large format photography experimenters.

[ related topics: Books Photography ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2009-03-22 22:29:21.102629+00 by: meuon

If you are looking: I know where a couple of large format View camera's are. Greg Ross has them and they look awesome.

#Comment Re: made: 2009-03-22 23:10:08.464548+00 by: Dan Lyke

I'd love a view camera and a decent lens, probably a 210 or so, but making it useful also requires enough energy to do some hardware hackery and build a back for it, so I must keep myself from going down that path.

#Comment Re: made: 2009-03-24 03:32:48.369372+00 by: TheSHAD0W

http://shambala.net/misc/cameraobscura.gif

This is only marginally similar, but your article reminded me of it. This is a simple design for a pinhole camera to use for eclipse viewing.

#Comment Re: made: 2009-03-24 23:32:42.900268+00 by: jeff [edit history]

There are some tilt-shift lenses available for 35mm format (film and DSLR) cameras. I've been close to pulling the trigger for one, but haven't yet. I truly admire folks who have the patience to shoot with larger format cameras. They make photographs (contrasted with taking photographs).

Of course, Ansel Adams was/is one of my all-time favorites when it comes to large format photography, but I've recently been exposed to some of the work of Brad Wasburn. He's quite impressive in his own image.

#Comment Re: made: 2009-03-24 23:35:05.983215+00 by: jeff [edit history]

There are some tilt-shift lenses available for 35mm format (film and DSLR) cameras. I've been close to pulling the trigger for one, but haven't yet. I truly admire folks who have the patience to shoot with larger format cameras. They make photographs (contrasted with taking photographs).

Ansel Adams was/is one of my all-time favorites when it comes to large format photography, but I've recently been exposed to some of the work of Bradford Wasburn. With his Fairchild view camera, he's quite impressive in his own right.

#Comment Re: made: 2009-03-25 17:56:55.737095+00 by: Dan Lyke

I rented a view camera for a long weekend once, took it to Yosemite, and caught two sunrises at the Golden Gate with it, and really enjoyed the process of making pictures with it. There's something almost visceral and sensuous about having that much direct control over the picture, and making sure that the picture is visualized before-hand, because every time I trip the shutter that's $5 (approx at the time, Velvia in ready-loads plus developing).

Quite a bit different from "auto-bracket and we'll fix it in post".

#Comment Re: View Camera Rental made: 2009-03-26 01:09:53.762501+00 by: jeff

That must have been an incredibly aesthetic and intimate experience, Dan!

I'd really like to try that once, myself...