D.I.Y View cameras?

Dave Wilkinson

Dave Wilkinson

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Anyone know if there are any plans available anywhere, to facilitate the making of a view camera?. Apart from photography my hobby is model engineering, and for a few years have had the urge to make my own - probably a 6x9 in the traditional style ( brass, mahogany etc.) and all the movements.
Now I'm retired I have the time to undertake such a project, and as a tool and instrument maker, the machines and tools to fabricate most parts, including racks, gears, worms and pinions etc.. Most of the models I have built, have had drawings and materials - castings etc. available, but I've never seen anything relating to cameras!. If neccessary I will scratch-build to my own design, but just wondered if anyone had seen such a project described anywhere?, that might help my thoughts, and speed things up a bit!. BTW the only close thing that I have seen over here, is a 4x5 kit - lazer cut, looks like MDF and alluminum - not really what I'm looking to achieve!
anyone seen anything that might fire my imagination? (no rude answers to that!)
Cheers, Dave.
 
Somebody was marketing a kit for a woode field camera a fe years ago. I don't recall who it was. The biggest consideration is where are you going to find bellows?
 
There used to be quite a few LF kit camera vendors, but allmost all that I bookmarked seem to have abandoned their web site. Bulldog seems to be most alive among the bunch, but their MDF kits are on the heavy side and of debatable beauty. And besides, their web site shop has been closed for maintenance for four months, and their biggest distributor, lomography, list them as out of stock as well - which does not look like the peak of availability either...

Somebody announced a new LF kit in succession of Bender (who sold quite nice kits up until last year) some days ago over at largeformatphotography - http://www.diycamerakit.com/. Only preorders taken for now, but being at the beginning of their operations, there is a bit more hope that these kits may actually become available some time in the future.
 
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If you're willing to dispense with a bellows and movements, a simple nested box camera works well, the rear portion sliding into the front portion, which sits on a wooden base. This is the type of camera commonly used in the 19th century. Look at the George Eastman online museum for many pictures of wooden box cameras from that era for ideas.

Regarding bellows, they can be made by hand. There are several people who have posted plans on how to do this, just do a search.

You also don't necessarily need a bona fide LF lens; any lens that focuses an image at the appropriate focal length can work, the coverage depending on lens design and your film format size. Enlarger lenses, with built-in adjustable aperture, will work. With slow film and small apertures, timing the exposure using the lens cap method is fine. You can even do portraits in this way, as most people sitting still don't exhibit much movement for a second or two. One good way to use this technique is with paper negatives, as they are intrinsically slow, working well with the lack of a real shutter, and the resulting negatives contact print very nicely, and also scan easily on any flatbed scanner.

~Joe
 
Thanks for all the info!, got lots of ideas!, I found some off-cuts of mahogony and plenty of brass around my shop - so I've made a start cutting!. Woodwork is not my strong point, so I thought I would get the body out of the way first! - along with it's mounting, in pic. ( both need a little fine finishing! ) and the wood has a coat of varnish to keep the dirt out while I am working on it!. Eventually it will take my Mamiya Press film holders, and I will need a lens with good coverage to accomodate the movements, I'll post more pics - as the machining progresses.
Cheers, Dave.
 

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Many posts to this thread at largeformatphotography

Many posts to this thread at largeformatphotography

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=36782&highlight=build

There are 486 posts on this one thread at www.largeformatphotography.info.

Many of these posts relate to custom cameras. I think I saw a thread there that was entirely devoted to showing diy cameras and had even more posts.

There is also a fellow named John Grepstad (?) who has much interesting DIY stuff on his web site.
 
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