Some form of motor drive and/or multi-film-holder interchange device will be handy. Will it be Autofocus?
I think an SLR would be more suitable for longer lenses. With a full scale mirror box (one that can cover a 10x10" focusing screen for landscape/portrait), the shortest lens assuming you want some distant focusing is about 16"/420mm. Your 480mm f4.5 Xenar lens would work, but as others have mentioned in order to have the instantaneous exposure on an SLR you'd really want a spring loaded mirror like the Graflex and a focal plane shutter (I can't imagine racking two 480 F4.5 Xenars on a TLR!) I was lucky to find a good working 8x10 Graflex FP shutter some years ago and this has been the driving point to someday finish my SLR camera. On the other hand, a TLR can be made without a reflex box and use a pair of 240mm lenses though the issue with parallax correction will have to be dealt with. A TLR with a leaf-shuttered taking lens would be more suited for syncing with a strobe, if you need depth of field, it's possible to shoot F64 with a powerful enough strobe and freeze any motion.
I'd go with an SLR. On an 8x10 TLR, there would be about a foot of distance between the viewing and taking lens, way too much of a difference for both composition and focusing.
A really trick set-up would close the shutter as the mirror starts to rise, then fire the shutter (and strobe) when the mirror opens all the way.
"I love my Verito lens, but I always have to sharpen everything in Photoshop..."
Hey Luis-F-S - For some reason, when I post, the text I write stays in the box, and when I came back to this tab in firefox I thought it didn't post so I clicked reply a second time lol
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Omg ic-racer, lol - Autofocus would be a dream! hahaha I'll have to ask my aerospace engineer uncle to help build that :P
I can't remember the name, but I remember my friend picking up that 4x5 film holder that holds multiple negs - that in 8x10 would be amazing
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Thanks Henry Suryo for your continued support through private messages and replies in this thread.
Sorry, I must have mixed up what you said. Should get a Series D Graflex in 4x5 and try to scale up?
Has anyone made an 8x10 SLR? I'd love to see some photos and ask for advice.
Yep, I will be shooting in studio with strobes.
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Woah, thanks Mark Sawyer. I like your thinking, but sounds really advanced. But thanks for the advice
Basically, it's the difficulty of coming up with and building a good mirror system versus a parallax-compensating system. Both have been done many times. I used to have a Keith Camera TL 4x5. It used a cam to account for parallax. Personally, I'd go twin lens....No blackout and less vibration in the system.
“You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know
Strobes with a huge curtain shutter? Not particularly practical.
But then, Kevin, none of what you say you want to do is particularly practical. There are reasons why most old-time portrait photographers used normal ordinary view cameras with lenses in shutter. There are also reasons why very few LF TLRs were sold.
For the second time, what's your budget?
Why build? Just buy a Gowlandflex 8x10 twin lens reflex camera. I think 8 were built and surely one would be for sale at the right money.
Photography:first utterance. Sir John Herschel, 14 March 1839 at the Royal Society. "...Photography or the application of the Chemical rays of light to the purpose of pictorial representation,..".
Hello Peter!
Thanks for a reply.
I found that Keith camera you mentioned.
http://i1074.photobucket.com/albums/...9/DSC_0497.jpg
Sorry, I'm not that experienced with these systems. How does the parallax-compensating work? Do you tilt the front standards or just rise and fall?
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Hey Dan! - Thanks for another reply.
Hehe, I'm that guy, full of big dreams!
Sorry, I missed your question about the budget. Well, I don't mind finding another Xenar 480mm and get the two 8x10 cameras (along with the additional hardware).
Or I could ask my brother in law, a carpenter, to maybe help with an SLR design (which would save me even more many as compared to the TLR design or finding/buying a Gowlandflex 8x10).
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Hey Maris, thanks for a reply.
I saw a few links on ones for sale and emailed the seller but it was long sold
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Be well all!
The Gowland SLR is a much simpler beast than a Graflex and would be something that a reasonably skilled person could hope to replicate. The drawback is that has a single speed shutter, meant for use with strobes. Instead of a large flip up mirror back near the film plane it use a smaller sideways sliding mirror closer to the lens. The mirror is part of a simple guillotine shutter, albeit spring powered not gravity. As it slides horizontally out of the light path the film is exposed before the end of the shutter slides across and blocks the light once more.
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