"Budget" ULF Landscape Rig?

[Drew Bedo]

I have written this before but its still good.

In the 1990s I knew a collector who had two huge ULF studio cameras displayed in his collection. At the time I had access to large sheets of film used for CAT scans and MRI at a hospital where I worked. . .and had access to the darkroom automatic processors for the film. I suggested that we collaborate on doing some ULF imaging. When he realized that I meant to actually make photographs with his cameras he broke out in a cold sweat and had an anxiety attack. No pictures were made.

[MartinP]

I read this thread and thought of a basic container that might serve as a camera-body. At work I had to sort out a way to move CVD and AlN wafers coated with light-sensitive material from one cleanroom to another in our test department. Of course there are specially-built containers in Production, but for testing we use all sorts of weird sizes of materials so a large container with removable holders inside was the way to go.

The quick and cheap solution was to go and order some plastic storage-containers of various sizes. These are black PP, with dust-tight and light-tight(-ish, fully light-tight with neoprene strips added) lids and resistant to the solvents they might come in contact with. The largest size I used was about 18x12x12" internally, but larger ones are available, and it occurs to me that these would make an excellent (and robust) large / ULF body, as one could fix a lens-mount and focussing system at one end with light-trapped 'arms' at the other.

Edit: Various focus distances could be accomodated by fixing a limited-range focussing system on to a changeable cone, rather than a long-range focussing system mounted directly to the body?