How to print a shutter

[Phasma]

Hi everyone!

I am new here and I want to share the process of printing a huge shutter for a 415mm 3,6 projection lens.

First of all - My experience in large format is only about a year now... but I take fotos since years digitally (crop, later so called "full frame"). My aim is what I call Object oriented Fotography. It goes bejond seperating something from a blurry background. Lighting/Exposure.. vignetting and everything needs to work together to isolate a Subject (or sometimes Subjects) in a Frame. Besides all of the cool reasons to switch to large format (in my case 8x10) - for me it is mostly the small amount of depth of field and the possibility to control it exaclty.



This is the reason I went from a Symmar 300 5.6 to a Plaubel 300 4.2 and from a Symmar 360 5.6 to this crazy 415 3.6. The only thing is, that this huge 415mm lens had nothing. no mounting option, no lens caps and no shutter or aperture.

So I printed them starting with the mount for my Plaubel camera.



once I had all this, I needed a shutter. As I am a 3d artist, I started doodeling around in 3DsMax...

http://recordit.co/hUlFcrIs23

when it came to the point of moving the blades, I first went for an unconventional approach

http://recordit.co/xOqml7CTGM

but then ended up with a more cummon technique

http://recordit.co/BvHzHnxcIv

http://recordit.co/jyufpt9uhs

http://recordit.co/JvdmFibCcX

I rendered everything nicely




and then sent it of for printing @shapeways

Here is the video of the unboxing and initial assembly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh1gsWKGHPU

after some adjustments it was closing properly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWuvHiYekdg

and then I added a bike break for remote control
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc0OYN4Tqso

finally, this is what it looks like when shooting...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cn8zT7pGD4


As you might have seen, there is still a little hole in the middle - I calculated it to be around f2000, so in sunny daylight there is currently still the possibility to unintentionally expose the film before/after shooting. I will soon fix this as well :-)

I will show some test-shots in the next post

[Phasma]

as you can see, the depth of field is nice and shallow.

If you are interested, I can give you the 3d Files.

I hope you enjoy'd this and sorry for my bad english :-)

[B.S.Kumar]

This is a great idea!

Kumar

[Tin Can]

Like!

[Paul Ron]

great job!

[Pere Casals]

Great !!!

Perhaps, for the f/2000 hole, you may attach a little plating behind one of the blades, in the tip, so it will cover the central area.

[Phasma]

Thanks to all!

Great !!!

Perhaps, for the f/2000 hole, you may attach a little plating behind one of the blades, in the tip, so it will cover the central area.

this is exaclty what I had in mind :-)

[ic-racer]

That is great. Even down to the bike break...what an awesome solution to the long throw needed to activate the shutter.

[jp]

Beautiful work!

Many of the older shutters had overlapping blades to stop the light leaking and the overlap was a wear/friction area unfortunately. With 3d printing you could make the overlap be small and stepped/terraced sort of so the blades don't wear. I don't think they would have been able to do that reliably or economically a hundred years ago. Assume it will get sloppy or slightly out of spec over time.

[Phasma]

Many of the older shutters had overlapping blades to stop the light leaking (...)

Yes. but i could not do an overlap at all with 3d printing as material this thin would have been way to fragile/not possible to print. thats why i choose the concave/convex profiles on the blades to stop the light leakage... however this could not be achieved perfectly in the middle where all blades meet as just minimal differences in closing angles will cause a little hole...