BIG! camera...

[Emil Schildt]

or?

wonder what lens they use...

http://dvice.com/archives/2012/01/35-foot-long-fi.php

[Steven Tribe]

Obviously a scaled up version of the Poco/Premo type shutter shown.
This is only a project - he hasn't got around to thinking about optics yet.
His name is Manarchy - perhaps short for "Maniac Anarchy"?
I think (hope) this is a joke.

[Steven Scanner]

My first thought for lenses are: observatory lenses. They are big enough although I'm not shure if they can reuse any of them.
But never mind the lens, what about the film? How do you load the huge film? How do you develop a huge film? How fast can a big shutter be?
I hope this isn't a joke! It's not going to be an easy project, but an awesome one for shure.

[taulen]

http://filmsnotdead.com/2012/01/17/the-colossal-camera-that-will-capture-vanishing-cultures/

[Nathan Smith]

It's seems to be real project, but that is definitely an "artists representation" of the camera. Think about it, are you really going to hook a 10" diameter rubber air hose to that shutter? :) ... the film holder in the back looks a tad unwieldy as well.

http://thefpac.org/
http://www.manarchy.com/

[Jim Jones]

I'm not impressed by either Manarchy or his project. It smells like an entrepreneur seeking glory at other's expense with nothing really new. Over a hundred years ago George Lawrence accomplished much the same thing with the relatively primative technology of that day http://robroy.dyndns.info/lawrence/mammoth.html. In that instance, it was the photographs, not the public spectacle, that was the goal. Over the years even bigger photographs became possible. I remember the 18x60 foot Kodak Coloramas in Yew York's Grand Central Station: http://www.kodak.com/ek/US/en/Tips_Projects_Center/Inspirational_Photo_Stories/The_Kodak_Colorama.htm. Some were captured on 8x10 film, some on even smaller film. Of course the viewer couldn't get close to those.

[Brian C. Miller]

So Kodak started with an 8x10 (the interviews say it was side-by-side), then a Deardorff 8x20 banquet camera, then the K-38 9x18 aerial camera, a Deardorff 5x10, a Linhoff using 120, and finally 35mm. It's also interesting to note that in the beginning, the 8x10 film speed was 5 (Not a typo! 1/5th/sec at f/16 in direct sunshine!).

[Cor]

I wonder how feasible it is..I am guessing he is using Xray film, he talks about 3 ASA, and in one of the movies he showed a blue negative. And assistant with red lights inside the camera

And than he want's to shoot at f 32, 3 ASA, and no motion blur with natural light (previous project was with flash). And than DOF..I did not do the math, but with the magnification ratio for portraits I very much doubt he will reach sufficient DOF at f 32 and what lens..1000mm or more.. And than blowing up these large negatives to gigantic prints, how ..optical..I guess not, so dreaded digital?

We'll see

Cor

[benrains]

The links about George Lawrence are great! I'd seen photographs of his mammoth camera before, but I'd never seen any sources describing it.

Over the years I've gathered information about various contemporary and historical large format cameras and photographers and added them to the discussion forum of the Size Matters Flickr group- http://www.flickr.com/groups/sizematters-lf/discuss/

[el french]

That's nothing, I was voted the world's best photographer 4 times (I'm not going to say by whom :p )

It wouldn't be very hard to make one of these.

Get an old semi trailer, preferably one with doors on the side as well as the back.
Build a lens plate and mount it inboard of the rear doors where the lens can left on and the doors can still close.
Forget about film and make it a wet plate camera.
Use a nice 4'x8' (or slightly smaller depending on the size of the semi trailer) sheet of honeycomb aluminum for the wet plate.
Build a holder for the wet plate that can swing to the horizontal for putting the collodian on, then vertical for the silver bath and exposing the image.
Put the holder on a track for adjusting focus. As a bonus, back swings, tilts, and shifts can be built in.


The only problem I can forsee is finding optics that are sharp corner to corner.

p.s. Don't forget to paint the sides of the trailer to look like a camera :cool:

[Steven Scanner]

Doesn't the collodian process need longer exposion time? Remember, light has to travel thru the lens, all the way across the trailer to a big film (or plate). I don't expect a lot of light shining on the film.
You're right about one thing. Loading and developing should be done inside the trailer. This makes more sence than covering the exposed film, transporting it to another location, unpacking the film, developing. One question, where are you going to put the chemicals for the process?
(also, make chure you use sufficiant ventilation for the photographer/developer.)

It wouldn't be hard to make one of these. The "only" problems I see are the lens and the film. Everything else can be made by any carpender.

[unixrevolution]

I applaud this camera both as a technical achievement, as a project to document dying cultures, and as something to do for the sheer unadulterated hell of it.

I have to echo the sentiments of those above about the DoF though...sharp portraits with such a long lens at such a close relative focusing distance is going to create serious Depth problems. I've seen the shallow DoF you get on an 8x10 with a fast Petzval. This is going to be a nightmare. And stopping down enough to get a deep field will introduce diffraction, for sure. Add to that the ultra-slow emulsion and you have motion blur creeping in as well.

Then to try to enlarge the negative into a sharp, two-story print? Yikes.

I can't wait to see if he can do it, though. It should produce images unlike what you see with any other camera, that's for sure!

I had an idea like this, where you have a semi-trailer with a pinhole at the rear, exposing big rolls of photo paper, which are developed and fixed in the trailer. The last 8-10 feet of the trailer being a darkroom. It spits the prints out the bottom when it's done.

[benrains]

The camera truck idea has been successfully done (with impressive results too)-
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2003/08/59929
http://www.cameratruck.net/

The biggest camera I know of is the old El Toro base airplane hangar they used as a "pinhole" camera on a massive 28x108ft panel of emulsion coated fabric-
http://www.legacyphotoproject.com/
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5493587

[unixrevolution]

The camera truck idea has been successfully done (with impressive results too)-
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2003/08/59929
http://www.cameratruck.net/

The biggest camera I know of is the old El Toro base airplane hangar they used as a "pinhole" camera on a massive 28x108ft panel of emulsion coated fabric-
http://www.legacyphotoproject.com/
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5493587

Very cool. My idea for the camera truck was a semi-trailer, on the basis of it being more portable than an airplane hangar. The Hangar pinhole camera was my inspiration. Thanks for sharing the links!

[Marizu]

Are they suggesting that the portraits at the bottom of the web page (and in the video) are taken using that camera at f32?

With that close in framing, I wouldn't have thought that I could get that amount of dof my 8x10 at f32. Let alone 6x4.6 foot.
I can rarely get that much light on my film. With bellows and modifiers, I'm typically limited to f16/f22.

The portraits look great and the subjects and ideas behind it are engaging.
I wish him well with this project.

[tgtaylor]

A few months back there was a story on Public TV about a local (San Francisco) photographer that built a large film camera on a trailer and transported attached to a SUV/truck to location to photograph. To operate the camera he crawled inside via a lighttight sleeve-like aparatus. I forget all the details but maybe someone remembers or can point to the program. I think it was on KQED's Spark program - a weekly program featuring local artists.

Thomas

[dsphotog]

I'd bet people still ask him... "How many megapixels is it."

[Brian C. Miller]

John Chiara: ULF - No, Really! (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=66045) thread.

He uses a camera on a trailer. I'm not sure if there's actually a lens on that.

[poliweb]

Out of curiosity I ran some numbers on the depth of field for this camera.

Given the size of image and subject placement I come up with a depth of field of around 8 inches at f/32. That seems workable for a portrait.

For those who care - I used a circle of confusion of 2.5mm - suitably scaled up from the numbers used for smaller formats (0.03mm for 35mm and 0.3mm for 8x10). Also, interestingly enough the DoF isn't affected much by the focal length of lens - since the longer the lens the further away the subject is.

From the website and pictures it seems has actually done this and proven the "technology"/process.

I have no idea how he gets enough light on the subject - that would be for someone else to comment on.

Richard

[jb7]

That looks so bogus- is it April the first?

There may be something behind it (the world's biggest double dark slide?) and perhaps it's important that the camera is semiotically correct- the trailer cameras linked to earlier have about as much presence as a, well, trailer- but at least they work-

It could be that this artist's rendering hides as much as it communicates- maybe the rear compartment is a walk in chamber, maybe that big fake lens hides the taking lens behind plain glass, maybe the bellows are made of plywood-

It looks like a fairground attraction to me- maybe not a bad thing, really...

[unixrevolution]

Out of curiosity I ran some numbers on the depth of field for this camera.

Given the size of image and subject placement I come up with a depth of field of around 8 inches at f/32. That seems workable for a portrait.

For those who care - I used a circle of confusion of 2.5mm - suitably scaled up from the numbers used for smaller formats (0.03mm for 35mm and 0.3mm for 8x10). Also, interestingly enough the DoF isn't affected much by the focal length of lens - since the longer the lens the further away the subject is.

From the website and pictures it seems has actually done this and proven the "technology"/process.

I have no idea how he gets enough light on the subject - that would be for someone else to comment on.

Richard

If he's doing the subjects outdoors in daylight, using the sunny sixteen rule, at ISO 3 f/16, he needs 1/3s exposure. He will need roughly four times that for an exposure at f/32, so 1.3s. I don't know what kind of extension/magnification ratio he's working with, but I can't imagine he'd be focusing so closely as to need to do anything more than quadruple the exposure, which would be 5.2s. Not a short exposure by any means, but not an eternity either.

EDIT: I just saw another video about the project, and it's staggering. I was also completely right, even though I didn't say anything about it: I just knew the camera was bound for the Smithsonian when it was done shooting, and it is.

[poliweb]

If he's doing the subjects outdoors in daylight, using the sunny sixteen rule, at ISO 3 f/16, he needs 1/3s exposure. He will need roughly four times that for an exposure at f/32, so 1.3s. I don't know what kind of extension/magnification ratio he's working with, but I can't imagine he'd be focusing so closely as to need to do anything more than quadruple the exposure, which would be 5.2s. Not a short exposure by any means, but not an eternity either.

EDIT: I just saw another video about the project, and it's staggering. I was also completely right, even though I didn't say anything about it: I just knew the camera was bound for the Smithsonian when it was done shooting, and it is.

I think it's worse than that. Judging by the examples in the video the images seem to be roughly 4x life size. That means the exposure would need to be multiplied by 25. With your example the exposure would need to be over 30s.

Richard

[unixrevolution]

I think it's worse than that. Judging by the examples in the video the images seem to be roughly 4x life size. That means the exposure would need to be multiplied by 25. With your example the exposure would need to be over 30s.

Richard

I guess I misremembered the formula...serves me right for shooting mostly at infinity with my landscapes :o

30s is still not heinous, though, especially since it looks like he has the proper rig to hold a portraiture subject steady, as with a tintype.

[letchhausen]

John Chiara: ULF - No, Really! (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=66045) thread.

He uses a camera on a trailer. I'm not sure if there's actually a lens on that.

Thanks for that link. I saw his photos at Pier 24 recently and was quite taken with them. Quite a discussion on that thread.

As for the "Big!" camera, we'll have to see what turns out. It's not always about size though occasionally, something, like those 9/11 Polaroids, turns out to have their moments...

Suddenly my 4x5 seems so.....inadequate.....