4X5 Point&Shoot Landscape camera

[SocalAstro]

I finally had enough time to complete a project that I have been thinking about for nearly a year now :-)

I had a Nikkor SW 65mm lens sitting around with no camera to put it on.
I have a couple of Toyo 4x5 backs (rotating and non-rotating)
I found a helical focus mount on e-bay (from the far east).

All was left was to make a box to tie all the pieces together.

[SocalAstro]

Some more photos of the camera along the way:

fit checking the back
machining the inside cavity

[SocalAstro]

machining the front side and assembling the pieces together for the first time

[ghostcount]

She's a beaut!

I want one!!!

[Jack Dahlgren]

Why is the body so wide? I think I'd try to make it just the tiniest bit bigger than the back.

[SocalAstro]

Rather than make an elaborate fixture, I chose to use the 4 holes in the corners of the camera body as tooling/fixturing holes. I will also use these same corner hole to rigidly mount the camera on my telescope mount for tracked long exposure shots of the winter milky way in the next few months (weather permitting)


-Leon


Why is the body so wide? I think I'd try to make it just the tiniest bit bigger than the back.

[LF4Fun]

wow... really neat.
if you don't mind, could you post the ebay link on the helical mount? thankx.

[BetterSense]

Very nice. I am jealous of your means...I wish I had a CNC mill to make cameras with.

I also would like to know what focusing mount you used. For my own P&S camera (which is made out of a cigar box), I took apart a cheap 35mm lens and used the mechanism out of that. I can focus down to 5 feet.

[Jack Dahlgren]

Very nice. I am jealous of your means...I wish I had a CNC mill to make cameras with.


I'm jealous too, but I always feel sorry for the metal when I see a big block like that milled down to something small like this.

[Ben Syverson]

Awesome!! Amazing CNC rig

[LF4Fun]

sorry for hijacking SocalAstro's thread but can someone point me to a guide/instruction/tips on how to build one of this.

Thanks

[SocalAstro]

wow... really neat.
if you don't mind, could you post the ebay link on the helical mount? thankx.

The helical appears to be the same as used on the Gaoersi (sp?) cameras. I don't see any listed on Ebay at the moment, but they show up regularly.

I'll post a link if I see one.

-Leon

[SocalAstro]

I'm jealous too, but I always feel sorry for the metal when I see a big block like that milled down to something small like this.

Don't feel too bad for the metal :-) The shavings and slugs are recycled to make more billets of aluminum for the next guy

Cheers,
Leon

[NicolasArg]

Great, just great. I built a very similar setup around a Toyo back some time ago, but it came out pretty huge (it's posted in the show me your homemade camera thread). I think I messed up with the distance determination from the shutter plane to the ground glass ( I have a focusing device)
Would you mind sharing your method for calculating it?
Thanks!

[SocalAstro]

sorry for hijacking SocalAstro's thread but can someone point me to a guide/instruction/tips on how to build one of this.

Thanks

I'll put up a drawing to show the critical dimensions involved soon. The most critical thing to know is the lens mounting flange to film plane distance - luckily they are published by the manufactureres (Nikkon in this case) and can be found online.

-Leon

[BetterSense]

Something like that is best determined through testing, if you are making a fixed-focus camera. As little as .1mm can make a real difference if you are trying to achieve critical infinity focus.

[SocalAstro]

Awesome!! Amazing CNC rig

Thanks Ben

[SocalAstro]

Something like that is best determined through testing, if you are making a fixed-focus camera. As little as .1mm can make a real difference if you are trying to achieve critical infinity focus.

Very good point. I was at first going to make a fixed focus camera; The plan was to machine the body smaller (thinner) than the nominal size and shim the lens incrementally until it was focused at the hyperfocal distance for F/11.

-Leon

[SocalAstro]

Great, just great. I built a very similar setup around a Toyo back some time ago, but it came out pretty huge (it's posted in the show me your homemade camera thread). I think I messed up with the distance determination from the shutter plane to the ground glass ( I have a focusing device)
Would you mind sharing your method for calculating it?
Thanks!

I will be happy to; I may not be able to do so until next week as Im preparing for a weekend trip and scrambling to pack and not forget anything in the next few nights after work :-)

-Leon

[ghostcount]

I will be happy to; I may not be able to do so until next week as Im preparing for a weekend trip and scrambling to pack and not forget anything in the next few nights after work :-)

-Leon

Well... don't forget to bring this camera.:D I hope you can post some pics from this trip.

[John Schneider]

Don't feel too bad for the metal :-) The shavings and slugs are recycled to make more billets of aluminum for the next guy


If you want to feel sorry for metal, when I worked at Pratt & Whitney they used explosive forming to bend nickel alloys into the shapes they wanted. Milling is gentle by comparison.

Nice work btw!

[SocalAstro]

Randy,

The camera has't left my car since I assembled it :-) I shot with it during my lunch break today; those clouds were too tempting to pass up.


Well... don't forget to bring this camera.:D I hope you can post some pics from this trip.