Hi from New Zealand

[JRFrench]

Hi all,

My name is James, I'm a Engineering student currently studying for my PhD and living in the central North Island.

I have recently finished (mostly) constructing a 4x5 view camera. Its based on a twin rail system and has all of the common view camera movements.

I have designed and constructed nearly every component of the camera from scratch, from the bellows to the thumbscrews to the Ground Glass, the only major component I purchased is the Caltar Symmar-S 135mm.

I've got a few sheets under my belt so far, currently just getting the hang of exposure, tray development, ground glass focussing etc. I have some c41 chems on the way so hopefully when I get my technique down I can shoot some colour landscapes, which is the main purpose I built the camera for.

From what I have seen of this community it seems to be a very friendly and helpful one, I look forward to being a (small) part of it :D

[dsim]

Welcome to the community.

Looks like you've got yourself a nice camera.

[eduardtoader]

congratulations for your jeweler skills. I wait to see some work do with it.

[IanMazursky]

Really nice work!!
How did you make it?

[Michael Wynd]

Good to see another person from NZ here.
Mike

[briand]

Hi :)
and welcome to the forum, great looking camera you've made, hope to see some pic's soon. :D

[Ross Chambers]

That's pretty, damn I wish I had a quarter your skills.

However I cannot see any number 8 fencing wire anywhere in the construction.

Are you sure that you're a Kiwi? :-)

Regards - Ross

[largeformat apt]

G'day,
And well done
Pat

[Steven Tribe]

Looks like you have access to some pretty expensive/computer controlled machine tools!

[Vick Vickery]

Welcome to group therepy! Looks like pretty nice work on the home-built camera! My gosh...New Zealanders are popping up all over the place here!!! :)

[JRFrench]

Hi Guys, Thanks for the warm welcome.

The bellows were made by hand with some sun block curtain material and cardboard.
The majority of the parts were machined on a 3-axis CNC mill that my university kindly allows free access to (for engineering students). A few of the parts like the thumbscrews and some bushings and things were made on an old manual lathe I have at home.

Haha Ross no No 8 wire, but there is some welding wire in the home made pneumatic release, its the "piston rod" that actually does the pushing!

Ive just picked up some flat black paint and some black foam to finish off light proofing the camera, which I probably should have done before trying to take photos, oh well. My Tetenal C-41 chems just arrived as well so I can get into the Porta sheets in the fridge this weekend!

Ill do some more detailed photos of how everything works at some stage, something I would have liked to have when I was getting in to this project, to this date I have only seen in person one other view camera except for mine!

Attatched is my first successful shot with the camera, using an old selenium light meter, some basic bellows extension calculations (its nearly 1:2) and a new developer (d76 previously used ilfotec lc29) so I didn't make it easy! Also getting the hang of scanning, its not as straight forward as I had imagined.

[Paul H]

Welcome from the capital.

Looks like a nice job you've done with the camera.

[Chris C]

Welcome aboard.

You must have had some pretty expert advice as far as sorting out all the little fine details of that thing to build it entirely from scratch :D

[JRFrench]

I don't seem to recall any assistance :p A purely solo effort ;)

Ive got two sheets of Porta NC to dev now, and I modified my inversion tank to have some tags around the inside to hold 4x5 so I am gonna see how that goes today.