Show off your Large Format camera!

[Nathan Smith]

Kodak no.33 Camera I got off ebay. It was more or less a basket case. One thing I didn't realize when I started was that this camera originally was designed to take two 3.5x5 pictures on a 5x7 piece of film. It had a sliding blind in the back. I pulled that out. It's working well. Bellows by kit from Sorin at diycamerakit.com

Very nice! I have a couple of these in various stages of decrepitude and plan to get around to restoring them before too long.

What stain & finish did you use on your? It looks great!

Thanks,
Nathan

[sully75]

Hi Nathan,

Thanks! I don't have it handy but I got it from Rockler tools here in Cambridge, MA. It's called "gell" stain and "gell" oil. I think I used the cherry stain, I wanted a touch of red/purple. The camera was originally mahogany (well, it's still mahogany) but with a really crappy, chippy varnish.

Most important thing though is really careful surface prep. If you want to really make something look amazing, block sand it with 80 (only if it needs it) then 120 or 150 and then 220. You can also wet the surface of the wood in between sanding and then dry it with a hairdryer. That raises the little strings of wood left by the sandpaper and then you knock them down until there are no more. Makes the wood look and feel great.

The gell stuff worked good because I didn't have to use a brush...I don't have much of a shop, just a dinner table in the basement, so dust would have been a problem. You just rub the gell in and rub it off.

[Songyun]

My Chamonix Saber

[Andrew Plume]

aaah.............nice............and photographed against beer from a proper Brewery, too



andrew

[JamesFromSydney]

My Chamonix Saber

I'd be interested to know what you think of the Saber. I'd like to know, for example, whether it'd work better for hand-held candid portraits than a graflex (I have a Crown Graphic, which seems to work pretty well, I must say).

Is the finder coupled?

[sully75]

What camera is the Saber based on?

[gari beet]

That Saber looks great, I am interested on its origins too as I am looking to make a Hyperfocal 612 for cycle touring with a 75 or 90mm lens. That puppy looks the ticket!!

Gari

[rdenney]

What camera is the Saber based on?

Looks like a Polaroid Model 250, which claimed a Zeiss rangefinder.

Rick "who use to have one of these" Denney

[rdenney]

That Saber looks great, I am interested on its origins too as I am looking to make a Hyperfocal 612 for cycle touring with a 75 or 90mm lens. That puppy looks the ticket!!

You may require a special mount for the 6x12 holder. I didn't notice a Graflok, and a slide-in holder seems like it would violate the simplicity of the setup.

Rick "noting that such customization is probably available" Denney

[sully75]

i wish there was a fairly straightforward way of making a 4x5 rangefinder out of the polaroid 250 because they are just stupid cheap on ebay.

Maybe there is? If you could get the rangefinder calibrated to whatever lens you chose, and you could make a back without groundglass that a holder could just clip in to, you'd be in business.