Author Topic: When boredom overtakes (Read 9680 times)

Moiz · « **on:** July 23, 2013, 06:49:02 PM »

So it's Ramadan, I'm fasting and get very easily distracted at the moment. And because of this I decided on Saturday to build a 10x8 camera. And a film holder because I don't have a 10x8 one. All in all it took me about 4 hours to do and as I excitedly got ready to give it a whirl I realised I don't have any 10x8 trays to develop the paper negs. Then, during a food shop around Tesco yesterday I spotted foil disposable baking trays of just the right size and so today I took my first pics. Here they are:

Test 1 by Moiz, on Flickr

Test 2 by Moiz, on Flickr

Test 3 by Moiz, on Flickr

stevesegz · « **Reply #1 on:** July 23, 2013, 07:25:33 PM »

What a very productive few hours! excellent stuff.

Moiz · « **Reply #2 on:** July 23, 2013, 07:32:03 PM »

Cheers Steve.

Also, just realised, this thread was supposed to be a chance for people to share those little projects they do when bored. Lets keep it photographic!

sapata · « **Reply #3 on:** July 23, 2013, 08:32:37 PM »

I really like the second shot Moiz...

Nigel · « **Reply #4 on:** July 23, 2013, 08:45:33 PM »

Quote

So it's Ramadan, I'm fasting and get very easily distracted at the moment. And because of this I decided on Saturday to build a 10x8 camera. And a film holder because I don't have a 10x8 one. All in all it took me about 4 hours to do and as I excitedly got ready to give it a whirl I realised I don't have any 10x8 trays to develop the paper negs. Then, during a food shop around Tesco yesterday I spotted foil disposable baking trays of just the right size and so today I took my first pics.

Moiz - hold on a minute, you can't just gloss over a statement like "I decided to build a 10x8 camera and it took me 4 hours"!

If I decided to build a 10x8 camera it would take about 4 months! And those results are amazing, really, amazing. What does this camera look like?

DonkeyDave · « **Reply #5 on:** July 23, 2013, 08:53:30 PM »

hmmm, lots of wows

you built a camera
you built a 10x8 camera
and not only that it works - beautifully

some pics of camera required, and what lens did you go with in the end, have you got one of those brass rectinaculars?

obviously we should all starve more often, my partner is Muslim and fasting as well, but is nowhere near as productive!

Francois · « **Reply #6 on:** July 23, 2013, 09:04:59 PM »

Nice results.
Is the camera worthy of a picture or is it one of those timeless duct tape and cardboard contraptions?

Moiz · « **Reply #7 on:** July 23, 2013, 10:12:38 PM »

Thanks a lot guys. And Francois, you clearly have my number!

Yup, it's a bit of a black foam board and duct tape job to make a sliding box camera. My ground glass is currently tracing paper that can shift a good 10mm back and forth and makes focussing a but hit and miss but I should get a bit of acid etched glass to replace that tomorrow.

Ill take some pics of it tomorrow and post them up and ill try and get one under the dark cloth too.

Nigel: I think it helped that I had made a 5x4 version last year so knew what I was doing (vaguely) although the film holder was something new.

Dave: it's a brass lens but what kind I couldn't tell you. All I know is that it has an 8" focal length. Ill post what's written on it tomorrow too.

It's funny how mistakes often work out the best. That second picture was grossly over exposed and I snatched it from the dev after about 30 secs when I saw it was getting very dark. Some hefty curve treatment in Lightbox saved it.

Moiz · « **Reply #8 on:** July 23, 2013, 10:13:54 PM »

Oh and Dave, Ramadan Mubarak to your other half! We're half way there!

DonkeyDave · « **Reply #9 on:** July 24, 2013, 07:11:17 AM »

:-)

I may have inadvertently caused confusion, partner in the accountancy/business sense! The power of the internet and words with 2 meanings. We might as well be married the amount of time we spend together however.

Late Developer · « **Reply #10 on:** July 24, 2013, 09:08:36 AM »

Moiz's comments regarding getting a tad tetchy during Ramadan stikes a major chord with me. Due to my ignorance of the Muslim calendar (and a desire to get well away from the madness of the Olympics - the main stadium for which is on the line down which I commute every day) I booked a holiday in Marrakesh for this time last year.

Bad move.

The locals can't eat or drink from sun up to sun down (around 16 hours

) when, by quirk of fate, it's searingly hot. To add insult to injury, many are employed serving food and drink to us at precisely the time they, I'm absolutely certain, would love to neck a long, cold one themselves.

Respect to them. I couldn't cope with it. And as for building a working 10x8 that produces such stunning photos, I'm in awe. That doesn't smack to me of distraction. That is a very clear and focused activity (pun intended).

Moiz · « **Reply #11 on:** July 24, 2013, 11:33:58 AM »

Dave: I knew that!

Paul: In your defence, the Islamic calendar is Lunar based so changes by 11 days each year relative to the Gregorian. Half the time I don't know what month it is! I spent Ramadan in Iraq once but the tourist trade there is not as booming as Morrocco's so during the daytime everything pretty much shut down and come sunset the place was jumping!

Right, back to photography......here is the camera:

Moiz · « **Reply #12 on:** July 24, 2013, 11:58:22 AM »

Nigel: As you can see, it's hardly a work of art

No movements what so ever (if you discount the fact that the rear box slides out a bit wonky giving me rear tilt).

Francois · « **Reply #13 on:** July 24, 2013, 03:07:20 PM »

It's not very different from the early cameras which were just like that. Had it been made out of wood, it would have been pretty much indistinguishable from the originals. (except for the age of the wood, patina and assembly techniques.)

Moiz · « **Reply #14 on:** July 24, 2013, 03:16:19 PM »

Ah Francois, don't get me started, for this was just a prototype! I do think I'll eventually make one from ply or even a hardwood if I'm feeling particularly flush. This was more a test to see if the brass lens I'd picked up at Photographica would cover 10x8.

Francois · « **Reply #15 on:** July 24, 2013, 03:36:56 PM »

Just to help, here is the Giroux Daguerreotype camera

Nigel · « **Reply #16 on:** July 24, 2013, 09:03:22 PM »

Moiz - I don't think that's too shabby at all. The black foam core makes a really neat job. I'm particularly impressed with film holder. The next stage has to be a plywood version.

You've just reminded me I have a Graphic 5x4 lens waiting for my Travelwide to arrive in December, a foam core project would fill that gap nicely ........

Adam Doe · « **Reply #17 on:** July 25, 2013, 02:38:43 AM »

Moiz, that camera is quite cool, and inspiring.

John Robison · « **Reply #18 on:** July 25, 2013, 12:53:35 PM »

Wow Moiz, glad you got bored, what a treat. A great job with minimal equipment.

Moiz · « **Reply #19 on:** July 25, 2013, 03:02:34 PM »

Nigel: happy to inspire! My foray into large format was with a foamcore pinhole last year.

Adam & John: cheers!

Lund · « **Reply #20 on:** July 27, 2013, 04:15:29 PM »

After seeing this I couldn't resist. Built a foam core camera for 5x7 and a 21 cm lens I had lying around.

First test pic with somewhat correct exposure. Paper negative and direct copy.

astrobeck · « **Reply #21 on:** July 27, 2013, 05:14:14 PM »

My hats off to you!
The camera looks just great and the results are very nice!
As a fellow dinker of camera building, I truly appreciate the effort made to make a camera and a photo!
Cheers!
lovely stuff!
Becky

Moiz · « **Reply #22 on:** July 27, 2013, 07:09:37 PM »

Cheers Becky!

Lund: I love the look of that lens! Great results and lovely tones for a paper neg.

Phil Bebbington · « **Reply #23 on:** July 27, 2013, 07:23:00 PM »

There are so many clever people on Filmwasters. I wish I was as motivated! Congratulations on the results.

Jack Johnson · « **Reply #24 on:** July 27, 2013, 11:09:58 PM »

Quote from: Nigel on July 23, 2013, 08:45:33 PM

Quote
So it's Ramadan, I'm fasting and get very easily distracted at the moment. And because of this I decided on Saturday to build a 10x8 camera. And a film holder because I don't have a 10x8 one. All in all it took me about 4 hours to do and as I excitedly got ready to give it a whirl I realised I don't have any 10x8 trays to develop the paper negs. Then, during a food shop around Tesco yesterday I spotted foil disposable baking trays of just the right size and so today I took my first pics.

Moiz - hold on a minute, you can't just gloss over a statement like "I decided to build a 10x8 camera and it took me 4 hours"! If I decided to build a 10x8 camera it would take about 4 months! And those results are amazing, really, amazing. What does this camera look like?

I second the ability level and amazement. Fantastic work, Moiz!

jojonas~ · « **Reply #25 on:** August 07, 2013, 07:48:33 PM »

just recently scavanged a lens from a thrashed overhead projector. this will be something for rainy days...

Nigel · « **Reply #26 on:** August 24, 2013, 10:11:45 AM »

Resurrecting this thread I've been thinking about having a go at making a 5x4 camera from some foam core.

After some extensive googling I've failed to find how I calculate what the minimum and maximum distance from the film plane to lens needs to be?

There's bound to be someone here who knows!

I have a 90mm lens, if that makes a difference? I imagine it should but thinking of an SLR I don't see how it can?? I'm confused!

Ed Wenn · « **Reply #27 on:** August 24, 2013, 10:36:42 AM »

Obviously I could answer this, but instead I'll hand over to Francois....

Nigel · « **Reply #28 on:** August 24, 2013, 10:52:10 AM »

Quote

Obviously I could answer this, but instead I'll hand over to Francois....

Just for a moment I thought "Ed KNOWS!!!!".

Lund · « **Reply #29 on:** August 24, 2013, 02:04:18 PM »

Quote from: Nigel on August 24, 2013, 10:11:45 AM

Resurrecting this thread I've been thinking about having a go at making a 5x4 camera from some foam core.

After some extensive googling I've failed to find how I calculate what the minimum and maximum distance from the film plane to lens needs to be? There's bound to be someone here who knows!

I have a 90mm lens, if that makes a difference? I imagine it should but thinking of an SLR I don't see how it can?? I'm confused!

I used a 21 cm lens. After some advanced experiments (holding the lens up and projecting a image of a window/clouds on a wall and measuring with a ruler) I found out that a distance of 21 cm gave me infinity focus. Since I used a box in a box design I didn't bother to calculate anything else. 40 cm distance is closer than I usually want to use anyway.

Francois · « **Reply #30 on:** August 24, 2013, 02:42:06 PM »

Well, actually this is pretty simple!
For a normal lens design like we find in all view cameras, the infinity focus distance is the same as the focal length.
Things get strange when we get into the telephoto designs which are created in a way as to minimize the bellows extension. So for those, you need to experiment.
Ultra wide angle lenses sometimes use a reverse telephoto design so that you can get a greater minimum distance between the lens and camera for focus and bellows movement.
SLR lenses are often reverse telephoto designs in order to accommodate the swinging mirror. They're also made to focus at a specific flange to film distance, this makes them harder to adapt to different cameras. But, you can still get them to work by using a teleconverter and moving the lenses inside it so that you get the image into focus... but that's for the hardcore DIY people!

Hope that answers the question...

Nigel · « **Reply #31 on:** August 24, 2013, 02:47:19 PM »

Francois - as we already know 'you da man'!

So that bit's easy. Now as I understand to focus on closer subjects (I'm primarily interested in portraits) I need to move the film away from the lens. Is there an easy method to establish this, or is it case of trial and error?

jojonas~ · « **Reply #32 on:** August 24, 2013, 03:55:52 PM »

I usually just let it project what's outside the window in a dark room against a piece of board (if the lens doesn't say the focal length)

I was looking for some funny large format video that explained it but..... I found this instead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5COs8RLjqc

edit: oh wait, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIFNdfjem18&feature=c4-overview&list=UU3GQNgnJ03htqeDKr2zQntA (complete with cheetos and coal)

Diane Peterson · « **Reply #33 on:** August 24, 2013, 04:15:35 PM »

I just built a 5x12 panorama pinhole camera..had a tiny light leak so resolved that issue yesterday..My big problem was the film holder but I have that worked out..I think I love building these giant wooden boxes as much as taking the pinhole images..here is a D------ snap..hope thats ok..just for display purposes..

the snap is in black & white but the real camera is kinda the color of an old abandoned "use to be white" house..it has little brass feet on its face corners and on the flat bottom..to keep it off any rough surfaces..quite a labor of love.
p.s.....found this wonderful sheet foam rubber material that is easily cut and contact cemented that works perfectly around the edges where the film holder sits..light tight to perfection also..This stuff is very cheap..about .99 cents for a piece 10 x 14..I am going to buy lots of it!

Francois · « **Reply #34 on:** August 24, 2013, 04:33:22 PM »

Quote from: Nigel on August 24, 2013, 02:47:19 PM

Francois - as we already know 'you da man'!

So that bit's easy. Now as I understand to focus on closer subjects (I'm primarily interested in portraits) I need to move the film away from the lens. Is there an easy method to establish this, or is it case of trial and error?

Infinity focus is the closest to the film. But all lenses focus a bit differently so there's no hard pressed rule to calculate the distance for closer focus (or at least none that I know of). That's why on all rangefinders there are special cams for every lens.

If you don't want to use the groundglass to focus each shot, you could make some zone focus marks on the camera itself using the groundglass and then simply rely of depth of field to get the precise details in. That would work as long as you don't change the lens.

You could also do like in the movie industry where the lenses have markings for distance and they use a tape measure to calculate the distance.

Don't forget that depth of field is always greater behind the subject than in front of it (from memory, it's a 1/3-2/3 ratio)...

For the uber maniacal precision freaks, it's also worth noting that exposure at infinity is not exactly the same as for a portrait. The portrait, at equal aperture and speed would be underexposed by a fraction of a stop...

Nigel · « **Reply #35 on:** August 25, 2013, 08:34:08 AM »

Diane - that looks great, I can't wait to see some results.

Thanks guys, I think the best way is going to fix the lens in a lens board then mess around and get some close focus distances. It'll be fun experimenting!

Diane Peterson · « **Reply #36 on:** August 25, 2013, 03:23:01 PM »

Nigel, I can't remember if you have a large format camera but I just made a lens board for a pinhole on my large format ..making it for a six inch focal length about F300...works great! Obviously I can change the focal length and make other lens boards..for different F stops easily.

Moiz · « **Reply #37 on:** August 26, 2013, 07:41:10 AM »

Nigel, sorry for chiming in late but I was on holiday!

I'm still pretty new at all this so best to double check any info I give. If you are making a sliding box camera similar to mine then there are two factors to determine how much "bellows" you need. Firstly the focal length of the lens and secondly the type of photo you'll be taking.

So, as an example, if you were going to be using a 90mm lens and mostly taking landscapes you would be most interested in the infinity focus end of the bellows which would be 90mm bellows extension.

At the other end of the scale, lets say you wanted to take flower photographs with a 210mm lens so that the image on film is the same size as in reality ie. if the flower is 10cm across in reality and you want it 10cm across on film you need a bellows extension of twice the focal length, in this case 420mm.

So, for portraits, again you'll need to know what focal length lens you're using and whether you'll be doing full length portraits or head shots. After that its a bit of experimenting.

The good thing about foam board is the it's relatively cheap and it's not a big deal to trash it and start again.

Francois · « **Reply #38 on:** August 26, 2013, 03:52:46 PM »

Some of the early cameras evolved into having a triple sliding box design for such occasions.

Nigel · « **Reply #39 on:** August 26, 2013, 08:06:25 PM »

Quote

Nigel, sorry for chiming in late but I was on holiday!

I'm still pretty new at all this so best to double check any info I give. If you are making a sliding box camera similar to mine then there are two factors to determine how much "bellows" you need. Firstly the focal length of the lens and secondly the type of photo you'll be taking.

So, as an example, if you were going to be using a 90mm lens and mostly taking landscapes you would be most interested in the infinity focus end of the bellows which would be 90mm bellows extension.

At the other end of the scale, lets say you wanted to take flower photographs with a 210mm lens so that the image on film is the same size as in reality ie. if the flower is 10cm across in reality and you want it 10cm across on film you need a bellows extension of twice the focal length, in this case 420mm.

So, for portraits, again you'll need to know what focal length lens you're using and whether you'll be doing full length portraits or head shots. After that its a bit of experimenting.

The good thing about foam board is the it's relatively cheap and it's not a big deal to trash it and start again.

Hi Moiz

Thanks, I've been messing with the foamboard today and had great fun but I think my bellows extension may not be long enough. I'm using a 90mm lens so I made each section of the box just under 90mm so it should focus at infinity OK, but I'm really most interested in shoulder length portraits. The maximum bellows extension I'll get would be about 155mm, I'm now not sure that'll be enough. I'm so pleased with it so far I'll be gutted if I have to start again.

Francois · « **Reply #40 on:** August 26, 2013, 09:03:29 PM »

If you can't get close enough to focus, you can always make an extension tube that slips in the film side's box and that you slide the lens box over.

Nigel · « **Reply #41 on:** August 26, 2013, 10:08:19 PM »

Quote

If you can't get close enough to focus, you can always make an extension tube that slips in the film side's box and that you slide the lens box over.

I've been thinking the same myself. That's give me the flexibility to remove it if I want to shoot landscape in the future. That's a plan!

Francois · « **Reply #42 on:** August 26, 2013, 10:45:39 PM »

It's also probably easier than cutting the lens box to make it smaller so you could make a triple box extension.

Moiz · « **Reply #43 on:** August 27, 2013, 08:01:36 PM »

One more thing that springs to mind; make sure you have a solid base attached to the front box and that the rear sliding box(es) are designed to partly rest on that base. That'll prevent you suffering from unavoidable rear tilt!!

Nigel · « **Reply #44 on:** August 27, 2013, 08:58:18 PM »

Thanks Moiz, luckily I had thought of that.

Progress so far, not as quick as yours but I am enjoying the process.

jojonas~ · « **Reply #45 on:** August 28, 2013, 06:12:28 AM »

looking good nigel! I've been looking at some old camera designs and this type seems the most reliable and sturdy construction.
Lund has showed me the benefits of foamcore. it's a great material for building these kind of things!

Moiz · « **Reply #46 on:** August 28, 2013, 07:28:12 AM »

Nigel,

That look great, far neater than mine! What are you using as adhesive?

Nigel · « **Reply #47 on:** August 28, 2013, 08:05:35 AM »

I'm using PVA wood adhesive. I did a little test and it doesn't seem to effect the foam and once it's dry it really sticks!

Francois · « **Reply #48 on:** August 28, 2013, 03:10:09 PM »

Foancore can be glued with many adhesives, just don't use cyanoacrylate (krazy glue) as it will melt the foam!

jojonas~ · « **Reply #49 on:** August 30, 2013, 05:49:29 AM »

good to know. thanks francois!