A "film holder" ground glass

[OeT]

Just wanted to share a small project.
Been looking for easy way to set focus on converted polaroids and other diy cameras without a ground glass of their own.
I tried to gut and use regular film holder but it got messy so I decided to design my own that I could print in my 3d printer.
I will use 4mm frosted glass I happend to have laying around, maybe not the best choise but it will due.

3d model, front and back





I have never done a gg before so any suggestions or improvements is much appreciated
Will make a test print tomorrow

[koh303]

What cameras will this go on? Pack film or roll film conversions?

[Tim Meisburger]

Cool! I did the same thing with mahogany, and it works fine. Good luck!

[ScottPhotoCo]

This was what I made to set focus on my Graflex SLR.


Tim
www.ScottPhoto.co

[OeT]

What cameras will this go on? Pack film or roll film conversions?

I'm converting a Polaroid Pathfinder 120 to 4x5 so I will use it to check if the rangefinder is still on spot after I'm done.

[OeT]

Some results

The strip on the left is to keep it from sliding out


Strip glued in place


Glass mounted

[OeT]

Slide mounted in the Wanderlust Travelwide


It hard to show the image quality on the glass but i tried, taken in bright light without any dark cloth.
Didn't have any lens that fit on the camera so I used a Polaroid MP-4 taped on the front of the camera.


It's a huge improvement over the Travelwides original screen

[Drew Bedo]

I had one made for me by Mike at Professional Camera Repair in Houston. I brought in a wooden film holder and a piece of GG, He managed to put it together in 20-30 min ans charged me $40.

Works fine in my TravelWide.

[Tim Meisburger]

This looks great! Weirdly, it looks just like my mahogany one, including the finger groove, but I guess plastic is fits the camera better. Will share your files with others? Here is mine:

[BetterSense]

I have done this multiple times for multiple platforms...but what I never got figured out well is what to do with the ground glass between removing it from the camera and inserting the "real" filmholder. Every time, I pull out the GG and look around stupidly for where to put it while I install the film holder. Usually it goes under my arm, and gets fingerprints on it, or balanced on top the the camera and falls off, or simply on the ground and gets stepped on...for cameras like the travelwide or conversions that require the thing to be used every time, I need to come up with some kind of system for temporarily holding it on the tripod or camera... Maybe some sort of hook, bungee, or magnet. Crack that problem, and I will be truly impressed.