Show us your home made camera...

[Steve Smith]

A 5x7 I made last spring. Sort of a fugly step-child of Gandolfi and Lotus. There's a rambling 2-part dairy of the project here- http://colinflanarygraham.com/darkshop/?p=1226

There is some superb stuff there... and I have only looked at a small fraction of it so far (and I think you mean diary instead of dairy!).


Steve.

[Sal Santamaura]

...I think you mean diary instead of dairy...

With work like that, he can call it "feedlot" for all I care.

[VPooler]

This is my little build, not exactly large format but does a great job. If you want more about details click here and hover around for descriptions.
Story of the making and results can be found here
Built it this summer, it doesn't get much action but it is fun to use, although it catches a lot of attention when I take it outside and that makes shooting hard.

[Roger Thoms]

Colin, looks fantastic, as do the holders and the tripod. I just wanted to say that I thoroughly enjoyed your write ups on these projects. You did a great job of documenting them. Also a a carpenter by trade I can really appreciate the craftsmanship and precision work that went into these projects. I also think your being a little modest about your metal working abilities.

Roger

A 5x7 I made last spring. Sort of a fugly step-child of Gandolfi and Lotus. There's a rambling 2-part dairy of the project here- http://colinflanarygraham.com/darkshop/?p=1226








There's a few other project dairies on my site; I liked using the camera so much I made new holders for it and a new tripod as well.

[jb7]

Another inspirational camera Colin, beautifully executed and finished-
and that perfectly matched stack of holders is very impressive-

Nice camera too vpooler...

[thorley]

I started working on an 11x14 camera with the hope to create my own unique look of image. It has been a very healthy mental exercise with lots of drawing and measuring and maths. It's hard to know when to stop making it harder, I mean I do want to make photography, but this project keeps me very busy making a camera. I have not yet figured out how the focus track is going to work, I need a range of 60cm -100cm for my prefered lens. I would also like this camera to be portable, practical, functional, and not look like a heap of trash.
Video embedded hopefully

[Lachlan 717]

Thorley,

I'm building a 7x17" at the moment. I can possibly help you with sourcing parts in Melbourne. PM me if you want to have a chat.

[Colin Graham]

And your rack (of the rack and pinion drive), is it made of brass or plastic? Mine is plastic and the pinion is metal and I always wonder how long this combination will last, because there is quite a load on it when you tilt the camera on the tripod.

Sorry Wolfgang, I missed this question earlier. The gears are all brass, 20° angle, 48 pitch, 1/8" face widths- http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-gears/=q4dc4x. I wanted to try Delrin or stainless steel gears, but they proved to be much more difficult to find in the sizes I needed (or were much more expensive). Are yours nylon or Delrin? I've wondered how durable they are too. The Delrin is supposed to be self-lubricating, which could be nice.

Thanks again for the nice comments, much appreciated!

[Steve Smith]

Another good source for pinion gears is model car racing sites.

Like these: http://www.rchobbyestore.co.uk/search/brass-pinion

I am using these with Delrin rack gears I make myself with the CNC router at work.


Steve.

[Wolfgang AM]

My Rack is made of Polyacetal it is just 4x4mm in diameter http://www.conrad.at/ce/de/product/2...-4-mm?ref=list because of room restraint - I had to contruct some kind of clutch for rear swing. So the combination it isn't even nylon and I have a metal gear too with just 0.5 module, which is quite delicate. Anyway it has lasted till now, but on the other hand I don't use my 8x10 camera on a daily base ;-) Well yes and I never lubricated the gears. I think if my rack fails it is not hard to replace.