Making as much of a DIY 8x10 camera as I could

[jimskelton]

I came across an old coffee table and picked it up for the 3/4" hardwood in it with an 8x10 field camera in mind. As I glued the body together and put the wooden pins in, I was wondering, how DIY could I make this camera? I mean, with as few fasteners and purchased things as possible, complete, with bellows and lens? I had at my disposal a table saw, table mounted router, drill press, and 3D printer. I ended up purchasing the following:

12 1/4" bolts
7 1/4" nuts
11 wood screws
2 meters of fabric
1 poster board
PVC glue
2 achromatic 600mm lens elements
PLA filament for the 3D printer

I think in total it cost around $35 for the whole camera, including bellows, lens, and film holders. Here is the result:



Wood pieces were clamped and glued, and the front standard was reinforced with 4 screws. The knobs have embedded 1/4" bolts, and the hinges came with the coffee table. The bellows was made of blackout curtain fabric and poster board and lined with broadcloth. Only the front standard has movements.



It folds up fairly small but does weigh quite a bit since it's made out of hardwood. The ARCA tripod mount was made from 2 pieces and a router. I made all the knobs square or rectangular just for fun.



The back is made of softwood as well as the ground glass, which is currently a sheet protector sanded down with 600 grit. I have some 600 grit carbide on order to make a real ground glass in the future.



The back rotates to portrait and held in place by 4 retainers, 2 which are static and 2 which clamp down on it to hold it in place.



The focusing slide was made with a tapered router bit and the rails with the same bit. That was a little tricky. It should work with 150-400mm lenses.



The focusing gear was cut out of hardwood with a hand saw. I decided to 3D print the gear...



The lens is made from a pair of 600mm achromats, with a 3d printed aperture and shutter mechanism that I managed to put in X-Sync connections. It's actuated manually by a shutter release which can give shutter speeds up to 1/20 sec. The front standard takes a linhof lens board.



The film holders were made out of softwood and seem to be light tight for slow speed film. My plan is to use this camera with b&w and colour paper negatives as well as lith film.

I'll have to find some sort of backpack for it, and I'm curious as to how well it will work!

[Tin Can]

Excellent!

[John Layton]

That's brilliant! Now...go fill it full of holes (seriously!) and it'll lose some of that "excess" weight! Do this judiciously and it will not lose strength - honest!

[Tin Can]

Maybe he does not climb mountains

I don't
Very happy with heavy cameras

[Graham Patterson]

What did you use for the film holder light trap, and do you plan to fully remove the slide?

[jimskelton]

The light trap just has felt at the opening and no, the slide can't be fully removed or light will get in. Some day I'll study a real film holder to see how it works and maybe try duplicating it. Didn't they used to hand make them long ago? It would be really nice to know how it was done, but that seems to be a lost art.

What did you use for the film holder light trap, and do you plan to fully remove the slide?

[Dan Fromm]

How did you ensure that the film plane is in register with the ground glass?

[jimskelton]

I made the film holder first, then measured the film offset and built it into the ground glass offset when I made that. I've used both the ground glass and film holder on another DIY sliding box camera and they seem to be pretty well matched.

How did you ensure that the film plane is in register with the ground glass?

[jimskelton]

Here's the very first picture I took with this camera:



It was supposed to be a paper reversal but I put the paper into fixer instead of sodium sulfite for the clearing bath It didn't bleach well because it was exhausted, so I scanned and reversed the faint negative. This shows the funky lens, stopped down to f/16.5. You can imagine what it looks like at f/6.3!

Here's the next photo I took using a 210mm fujinon lens:



It's also a paper negative reversal, except with fresh chemicals.

[Jeembo]

Here's the very first picture I took with this camera:



It was supposed to be a paper reversal but I put the paper into fixer instead of sodium sulfite for the clearing bath It didn't bleach well because it was exhausted, so I scanned and reversed the faint negative. This shows the funky lens, stopped down to f/16.5. You can imagine what it looks like at f/6.3!

Here's the next photo I took using a 210mm fujinon lens:



It's also a paper negative reversal, except with fresh chemicals.

I came across an old coffee table and picked it up for the 3/4" hardwood in it with an 8x10 field camera in mind. As I glued the body together and put the wooden pins in, I was wondering, how DIY could I make this camera? I mean, with as few fasteners and purchased things as possible, complete, with bellows and lens? I had at my disposal a table saw, table mounted router, drill press, and 3D printer. I ended up purchasing the following:

12 1/4" bolts
7 1/4" nuts
11 wood screws
2 meters of fabric
1 poster board
PVC glue
2 achromatic 600mm lens elements
PLA filament for the 3D printer

Really cool. Did you manage to find a backpack to fit or are you going to make a DIY(would be pretty fitting not gonna lie )
Also if you planning to make a backpack from leather I can ask my brother a few questions(he's been leatherworking for over a decade, mostly making stuff like bags and holsters( he usually copies stuff like alien gear holsters with some minor tweaks and in leather instead of kydex), hence he might give you some pointers if you've never done it )