My perfect fixed lens LF camera - decision 1, the lens.

[Dan Fromm]

Havoc, OP, do you want to futz around with gear trying to make it and then trying to make it work well enough or do you want to take pictures? At today's prices for used equipment, buying is more economical and faster than making. But if you like tinkering, go to it.

OP, some 4x5 Crown and Speed Graphics have Kalart rangefinders. These work with only one focal length, changing focal length requires adjusting the RF. A Kalart can be adjusted for a 105 mm lens. If you want to tinker, by all means tinker. But if you want to take pictures buy a Graphic.

[Havoc]

As an engineer I like tinkering and making plans just as much as making photos It is something else than making live steam locs which is what I normally do in the workshop but I'm not yet to the point to try and turn a helical.

Seriously, I got a 75mm just to do what is proposed in this thread and started on a housing. So far I only used it as a pinhole. Most parts I get out of bins at fairs for a bit of loose change. But as you say, to make photos I got a Wista 45SP (and about 30 other cameras from 16mm to 6x17). Needs some work but already usable.

[xkaes]

Anyone using a "street machine" should forget about "absolute sharpness" and well as the COC. There are more important things to be concerned with -- just ask Man Ray:

>>> In terms of tools, when asked what type of camera he used in 1967, he replied: "None ! I have to modify them all. My cameras are all of my own design. I take lenses apart and put them together again and put them on cameras that were not meant for them." <<<

[adrianlambert]

I don’t *want* a camera, I *want* tack sharp prints at 1m high that depict scenes with as much useful context as possible when I’m standing between 6m and 60m away from the plane of focus, and without the distraction of warping at the edges of the picture. The complicating thing is that I need a camera to make those prints that I don’t already have; and I’ll need to be able to carry that camera anywhere; and I’ll need it ready to shoot at the drop of a hat - so it’ll certainly need to be a camera that is well tuned to the job. The Saber certainly comes as close as I’ve seen but even if one did come up for sale, it still doesn’t have the right lens - so as far as I’m aware I can’t possibly buy this camera that I want. In spite of bugger all experience in constructing cameras the only obvious solution appears to be that I’m going to need to build it. To do that I’m going to need new knowledge and new skills. I asked for help to solve one core problem in this thread and I got some useful information, but most fantastically I got my first solution. For that I dip my head to you all. Now the 105mm Fujinon NW lens has been purchased I will look to the next problem and seek a solution to that. If I do this enough times I will get to make my photographs. That’s the goal after all isn’t it, not the camera.

I’m bloody well going to give it a good try anyway!

[Jac@stafford.net]

In spite of bugger all experience in constructing cameras the only obvious solution appears to be that I’m going to need to build it.

So you find it better to re-invent a camera with whatever skills you have - likely less than a seasoned expert - based upon the second-hand advice of keyboard impressionists. Good luck. Keep us informed with evidence.
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[xkaes]

I don’t *want* a camera, I *want* tack sharp prints at 1m high that depict scenes with as much useful context as possible when I’m standing between 6m and 60m away from the plane of focus, and without the distraction of warping at the edges of the picture. The complicating thing is that I need a camera to make those prints that I don’t already have; and I’ll need to be able to carry that camera anywhere; and I’ll need it ready to shoot at the drop of a hat

If you want "tack sharp" pictures, you'll need a tripod -- at ANY shutter speed -- which in my mind, makes "drop of a hat" impossible. My hat hits the ground before I spread one tripod leg.

Your only option is to illuminate every picture with an electronic flash at 1/20,000 of a second.

[adrianlambert]

No, I’m tuning a camera to my specific needs and style. And who are you if not a keyboard impressionist?


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[adrianlambert]

If you want "tack sharp" pictures, you'll need a tripod, which in my mind, makes "drop of a hat" impossible. My hat hits the ground before I spread my tripod legs.

I have 6 tripods to choose from. What is this place?


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[Jac@stafford.net]

No, I’m tuning a camera to my specific needs and style. And who are you if not a keyboard impressionist?

Your needs and style are likely covered with no, or minimal and easily made compromise within the hundreds of cameras already built. Consider broadening the scope of your information, your knowledge.

Who am I? Search and be happy - or not if you prefer.
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[adrianlambert]

Your needs and style are likely covered within the hundreds of cameras already built. Consider broadening the scope of your information, your knowledge.

Who am I? Search and be happy - or not if you prefer.
.

(How naive of me to have thought this forum would be a place where all people would come to cordially ask, discuss, and share.)

I looked and I saw only the word retired. You obviously keep your cards closer than the retired statistician bloke. So I’m no more knowledgeable. Or interested unless you’re a retired documentary photographer or product designer? Ah, is that how you know so much about what’s best? That’s not true. Actually I would like to know what you did for a living. It’s such a huge part of our lives and therefore To many a big part of our sense of who we are. So always a valuable thing to share. The statistician has compiled an exemplary site about the fujinon Lf lenses. Easy to navigate and extract information critical for making a decision from. Much credit to him. I found it to be quite honestly one of the most pleasant internet experiences I’ve had in a very long while.

So anyway, I’ve searched and read and read and searched and I’m now very very confident that short of commissioning a Polaroid conversion person to tune me up a Polaroid 900 which despite weighing a good few Kgs is admittedly an appealing prospect, there are exactly zero large format cameras tuned the way I want one. There are many cameras that are capable of achieving what I want. I already own such a camera but I wouldn’t take it out and use it as I’ve described in a month of Sunday’s because it’s designed, as so many of them are, to do other things much better. I’d say these Polaroid conversions including the Saber are the exception to this rule and a growing one amongst enthusiastic ambitious young photographers. Sadly I’m not so young anymore but three out of four isn’t too bad.

Look at modern culture surrounding photography. I’m not talking HDR and instagram selfies. Not that those don’t have cultural value of course. I’m talking about cultural discourse and documentation - the ongoing desire of a photographer to document and monitor our ways of life. Now look at the way it’s displayed in modern galleries, I’m not talking about 16x20” prints in deep mount boards, not that those don’t have a wonderful aesthetic. I’m talking large format prints mounted on aluminium and such like. It seems that in part because of these two things combined that what modern photographers want out of LF cameras is changing. That’s why Polaroid’s and the wanderlust Camera project are engaging with young photographers. What I’m proposing here is only a small evolutionary step away, but still one that is born out of our shared photographic experience.

Anyway as always I’d be more than happy to be proved wrong by any person who has the experience to know how best to use good information. Knowledge combined with experience is the holy grail of course but when either one or the other is lacking on any subject, a bit of humility will go a long way in making up for it.


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