New LF from Chorzów, Poland

[grzybu]

Hi,

My name is Grzegorz and I'm completely new to LF. In fact I never saw working LF camera life.
I have quite long digital photography experience and some short experience with kallitype with digital negatives and I think it's time to make some fully analog contact prints.
Inspired by x-ray film discussions here I've ordered box of 18x24cm x-ray film and small pack of D76 developer.
Before I'll spend any money on gear I decided to make some "proof of concept" cartoon box camera.
I don't have any real camera lens able to cover anything close to 18x24cm so I've made one from huge, old 60mm binocular lens. It's focal distance is about 280mm. I just had to made tube, aperture cards, lens cap, etc. All made of cartoon ;)
Then I've bought very old film holder which supposed to be 18x24 but instead it's dual side 13x18. 18x24 will fit there but I have to make some frame to hold film.
So for now I have 13x18 holder which is nice because I can cut 18x24 sheets and get two 12x18 for tests.
Also 280mm lens fits better for smaller format.
Yesterday I've took first photo with cartoon box camera with aperture closed to f/8.
It's not easy to align two separate cartoon boxes, aim this in desired direction and focus ;)
Result isn't outstanding, but I have ZERO experience with LF and with contact printing from silver negatives which is bit different than using digital negatives.
DOF is so small, to small to judge lens quality, so I'll have to make more shots to see if such lens will give any usable results.
Well, at least there is something visible and I had only few scratches on the negative ;)
Here is my first LF photo:

It's bigger on screen than real print.

For a while I'll stay with cartoon boxes while I'll make some proper wooden camera design. Then I'll just have to make camera ;)

[Paul Bujak]

Welcome, Grzegorz. That's a great print especially for one made with a carton camera and scavenged lens. It has that old-time look from 150+ years ago. I wish you well in your making a camera and a good fun time with LF.

Paul

[Leigh]

Hi Grzegorz, and welcome aboard.

That's a great shot. Very well done. Bardzo dobrze.

- Leigh

[John Kasaian]

Welcome aboard!

[grzybu]

Thanks for warm words

Looks like I need to work with contrast on prints because scanned negatives look much better in terms of contrast. Detail is matter of print size and paper surface smoothness so it's not a big problem. But I have to lower the contrast on the prints first, but it should be quite easy.
Here are scans of my first two frames.

My absolutely first LF at f/8:


Second frame is f/18. Looks like this simple two elements achromatic lens is not that bad . There are much less scratches on negative this time too.


I have to test another 500mm lens made from really cheap +2 macro lens. On ground glass it looks promising.

[europanorama]

Thanks for warm words

Looks like I need to work with contrast on prints because scanned negatives look much better in terms of contrast. Detail is matter of print size and paper surface smoothness so it's not a big problem. But I have to lower the contrast on the prints first, but it should be quite easy.
Here are scans of my first two frames.

My absolutely first LF at f/8:


Second frame is f/18. Looks like this simple two elements achromatic lens is not that bad . There are much less scratches on negative this time too.


I have to test another 500mm lens made from really cheap +2 macro lens. On ground glass it looks promising.

Poles have always been the craziest europeans! I must know since I have 50% of them....
Miroslav Tichi who built primitive wooden cameras said in a german documentary: "If you want to get famous you must do it worse than anybody else!"

[grzybu]

Poles have always been the craziest europeans! I must know since I have 50% of them....
Miroslav Tichi who built primitive wooden cameras said in a german documentary: "If you want to get famous you must do it worse than anybody else!"

Then I'll be really famous :)
Here are photos of the camera:

[photoevangelist]

That's cool!

[Jody_S]

All you need now is a $800 Ries tripod to put that on...

[Ivan]

This sooo cool!