A little project- 3x4 field camera

steveo_mcg

steveo_mcg

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Steven
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I picked this up quite cheap not as cheap as I'd hoped but I figure it can be a bit of winter project. Its missing the back or any film holders so I'm going to have to work something out there and the bellows are terminally moth eaten but I've been thinking of trying to make some bellows for ages. It looks to be a fairly basic meniscus lens so its not going to be good for more than contact prints.

Unidentified 2x3 Field Camera by Steven, on Flickr

I'm guessing this iron work is to connect to a tripod but I've never seen it before, any thoughts?
Unidentified 2x3 Field Camera by Steven, on Flickr

It folds up pretty tiny too.
Unidentified 2x3 Field Camera by Steven, on Flickr
 
is the ironwork on the bottom part of it or something someone put on at a later date. It just seems odd to have a tripod base that big and , since everything else on it is brass, this isn't, My wista just has a screw hole in the base, not sure what the other makes have. But what you got there seems a little out of place. Pretty cool though :) what are you going to do with film? chop 5x4 down to size?
 
Looks like an interesting project Steve. I'm with Ashley in thinking the frame on the base is an add on at some point that I'd be tempted to remove. Looking at the picture it might be screwed into the original brass thread on the body?
 
It is part of a tripod yes, looks like a "quick" release plate to me.
 
Yeah had a prod, the iron work comes off and leaves a threaded hole not sure if it's a standard thread yet.
 
So what are your plans for the back then? Cut down 4x5 sheet, fit a roll film holder or use a Polaroid for FP100C?

I've been watching a couple of 2x3 graphics to do something similar.
 
stevelmx5 said:
So what are your plans for the back then? Cut down 4x5 sheet, fit a roll film holder or use a Polaroid for FP100C?

I've been watching a couple of 2x3 graphics to do something similar.
Click to expand...

Still not sure tbh. I've not seen a 3x4 back and holder to try to adapt one. Cut down film or paper would be my first choice I think.
 
is it not quarter plate?

if so, quarter plate sized sheet film can, i believe, still be obtained.
 
Looks like you should be able to cut a basic rectangle of acrylic to fit the rear mount then bond either a rollfilm holder or possibly a Polaroid back if it will fit ok.
 
Asha said:
is it not quarter plate?

if so, quarter plate sized sheet film can, i believe, still be obtained.
Click to expand...

Nah the actual opening at the back is 4" square which I guess means you could rotate a 3x4.


stevelmx5 said:
Looks like you should be able to cut a basic rectangle of acrylic to fit the rear mount then bond either a rollfilm holder or possibly a Polaroid back if it will fit ok.
Click to expand...

Ah, genius! Much simpler than making a wooden frame. I wonder if I could get a RB latch back to use one of my RB67 roll film backs.
 
If it helps mate, this is the plan I've drawn up for mounting the 23 Graphic back I've got into a 4x5 sized holder.

ImageUploadedByTalk Photography Forums1448826178.200774.jpg

This is a (very rough!) sketch of the film plane side of the roll film holder showing dimensions. If the rear opening of your camera is 4" you'd need to cut a slot on the side for the film holder to fit.

ImageUploadedByTalk Photography Forums1448826416.587209.jpg
 
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Quarter plate used to be 3.25 x 4.25 inches - I used to use paper in that side to "proof" 35mm frames.

The slightly larger 2.5 x 3.5 sheets are apparently made to order by Harman.

The use of a roll film back might indeed be the simplest solution though. I have a Wista 6x7 back that can either fit under the ground glass or be attached in place of the normal camera back as required/desired.
 
When I had an RB67, I wanted to make a mini view camera which took the RB film backs. They would work on this with a suitable adaptor, or perhaps a 6x9 roll film back.


Steve.
 
stevelmx5 said:
If it helps mate, this is the plan I've drawn up for mounting the 23 Graphic back I've got into a 4x5 sized holder.

View attachment 51510

This is a (very rough!) sketch of the film plane side of the roll film holder showing dimensions. If the rear opening of your camera is 4" you'd need to cut a slot on the side for the film holder to fit.

View attachment 51511
Click to expand...

Cheers mate, I think the simplest solution will be to make two acrylic mounts. The first could have an old rb back bound on it and the second could have a diy focus screen bound to it approximately where the film should be. I suspect trying to fabricate a spring back to hold a dds will be beyond me.

StephenM said:
Quarter plate used to be 3.25 x 4.25 inches - I used to use paper in that side to "proof" 35mm frames.

The slightly larger 2.5 x 3.5 sheets are apparently made to order by Harman.

The use of a roll film back might indeed be the simplest solution though. I have a Wista 6x7 back that can either fit under the ground glass or be attached in place of the normal camera back as required/desired.
Click to expand...

I agree, I think the only downside to a roll film back will be lack of film area. Given how soft the lens is likely to be bigger might be better in this case.
 
Steve Smith said:
When I had an RB67, I wanted to make a mini view camera which took the RB film backs. They would work on this with a suitable adaptor, or perhaps a 6x9 roll film back.


Steve.
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I rekon making an adapter should be within my abilities. A larger back would be grand but they seem to go for a lot of money. I'd really like a 612 back for the arca but they go for mega bucks.
 
steveo_mcg said:
Cheers mate, I think the simplest solution will be to make two acrylic mounts. The first could have an old rb back bound on it and the second could have a diy focus screen bound to it approximately where the film should be. I suspect trying to fabricate a spring back to hold a dds will be beyond me.
Click to expand...

Definitely. You've got a good sized surround around the bellows opening so I'd embed some neodymium magnets into it and matching magnets in the acrylic ground glass/film backs so they latch into place without needing fiddly clips. Add some foam seal and it looks like it would be light tight.

When I built my ground glass holder I found this document to meet existing 4x5 holder standards;

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dbj7l5nv3gnivb4/ASA_FILM_HOLDER.pdf?dl=0

This is a standard DDS holder for size as well;

https://www.dropbox.com/s/10dmlzk5xujuaxa/02_riteway_4x5_sheet_film_holder_web_8738.jpg?dl=0

I know you won't be using a 4x5 holder but the film plane is potentially the same depth with your 2x3 camera :0)
 
stevelmx5 said:
Forgot to say, this is the guy I bought my custom ground glass from. I paid £18 including postage from Lithuania for the 4x5 glass and it arrived in a few days. He makes them to whichever size/style you need so I'd recommend him.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/virgisst
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I think for the sake of this I'd be as well just to grind some acrylic, fairly sure I've still got cutting compounds from when I used to scary sharp my chisels.
 
Well thanks to the collected intelligence and experience of the collective looks like the bit I thought would be hardest should be relatively simple. Now how the ... Does one make bellows!
 
stevelmx5 said:
http://www.instructables.com/id/bellows-for-large-format-camera/?ALLSTEPS

Can you tell I've been adding to my "might be useful on another project.." favourites ;0)
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That looks doable. Not sure how hard it would be to add a taper though, the front standard is quite a lot smaller than the rear.


Steve Smith said:
Have you ever thought about adaptng a Holga 6x12 pinhole camera into a film back?



This is how I do it: http://stevesmithphoto.webs.com/bellows.html


Steve.
Click to expand...

Ahh for a laser cutter ;)

That's a good idea though. There is a guy I follow on flickr who adapted his pinholga to take a 90mm super angulon which is pretty cool.
 
steveo_mcg said:
That looks doable. Not sure how hard it would be to add a taper though, the front standard is quite a lot smaller than the rear.
Click to expand...

My bellows taper. Once you get your head around the geometry involved, it's quite easy. CAD helps.

steveo_mcg said:
There is a guy I follow on flickr who adapted his pinholga to take a 90mm super angulon which is pretty cool.
Click to expand...

I was going to do that with my 65mm Super Angulon but I ended up making the whole camera.


Steve.
 
I was thinking about this last night whilst feeling unwell.

The RB back needs to be a few mm proud of the back for darkslide to be removed and there is a small lip presumably part of the RB67 light trap. So I need to put the film holder on a spacer. If I put the gg on a similar spacer I could use one large piece of black acrylic as the main back and use magnets to swap between the gg and the film holder.

The issues that occur are light sealing and leveraging the back when winding on breaking the magnetic seal.
 
If you use some bar neodymium magnets around the outer edge of the acrylic and can embed some into the rollfilm back you should have a pretty strong bond. Alternatively it will be a matter of re-inserting the dark slide before winding on just in case.
 
I'll need to get a couple of quotes for the back I'm still a little hesitant about the magnets when winding but it would look a lot neater.

Measured up for the bellows and I think I've got the basics down but I'm struggling with the maths for the taper. I had a look at the instructable but I can't find the board they suggest, would any heavy card work? Apart from that looks like a thin base then a light proof over material, that right?
 
If you make the board a tight fit the magnets would just add an extra latch. Alternatively you could use a simple twist latch to hold the board in place. Not as neat looking but very simple.
 
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stevelmx5 said:
If you make the board a tight fit the magnets would just add an extra latch. Alternatively you could use a simple twist latch to hold the board in place. Not as beat looking but very simple.
Click to expand...

Okay I'm convinced I'll give it a shot.


In bellows news my polymath wife has helped me trace a template of the old ones so now I need to work out stiffeners.
 
Something like Bristol Board would be my guess, if it's not quite thick enough then double it up!
 
I've just done a quick Google and came across this (thorough!) guide to making bellows;

http://pheugo.com/cameras/uploads/14153931.pdf

"Stiffener Ribs Most books on bellows making for large cameras recommend using 67lb cover stock or similar material for the ribs. If the covering and liner are thin enough, this is a good choice. This type of material may be too thick for a small camera bellows. Since the ribs are glued onto the liner the glue will add some stiffness to the material. Thus you don't need to have a very heavy or stiff material to work for a small bellows. A good material for small bellows ribs is Kraft paper. This is a 60lb paper but is about half the thickness of cover stock. This type of material is used to make yellow or brown clasp envelopes that you probably have received in the mail. You can cut the ribs from the envelope. You can also purchase this material in rolls anywhere packaging or art supplies are sold. If you plan on using a computer to draw the patterns, you can cut the Kraft paper into a letter size piece and it should fit through the printer."
 
stevelmx5 said:
I've just done a quick Google and came across this (thorough!) guide to making bellows;

http://pheugo.com/cameras/uploads/14153931.pdf

"Stiffener Ribs Most books on bellows making for large cameras recommend using 67lb cover stock or similar material for the ribs. If the covering and liner are thin enough, this is a good choice. This type of material may be too thick for a small camera bellows. Since the ribs are glued onto the liner the glue will add some stiffness to the material. Thus you don't need to have a very heavy or stiff material to work for a small bellows. A good material for small bellows ribs is Kraft paper. This is a 60lb paper but is about half the thickness of cover stock. This type of material is used to make yellow or brown clasp envelopes that you probably have received in the mail. You can cut the ribs from the envelope. You can also purchase this material in rolls anywhere packaging or art supplies are sold. If you plan on using a computer to draw the patterns, you can cut the Kraft paper into a letter size piece and it should fit through the printer."
Click to expand...


Now that is a treatise, thanks.

My biggest complaint with these kinds of projects is the information is either in olde English or 'Merican, its as if ISO never happend, 1/32" of this and a 67lb of that, I spent ages just trying to do conversions.
/rant.
 
I'm trying something a little off base for the bellows material. I came across someone who made lovely bellows from patterned silk by painting it with acrylic paint, I've got some scrap rip stop nylon from a tarp I made a while back so I've started painting it up to see if I can get it totally opaque. It is currently as light tight as you'd expect from a thin piece of green fabric.
 
Well I've spent the day layering paint on fabric, it's looking 90% opaque but it's also not even. Part of the problem has been I've been testing on a relatively small piece of fabric so mixing tiny amount of paint with water means it doesn't always get the same amount of paint. I think working on a bigger piece with larger volumes of paint it should be easier. I think it'll work but might need some leatherette as well.

Spent the evening cutting ribs, plan tomorrow is to tidy and glue up the scrap piece as a test bellows regardless of its light tightness.
 
You could try laying a opaque base layer down first, then painting your pattern over that. If that is not flexible enough, maybe spray glue some black plastic film (like in darkroom printing paper boxes) to it then paint. The composite will be a bit stiffer than just the fabric, but it might be worth a small scale prototype!
 
robhooley167 said:
You could try laying a opaque base layer down first, then painting your pattern over that. If that is not flexible enough, maybe spray glue some black plastic film (like in darkroom printing paper boxes) to it then paint. The composite will be a bit stiffer than just the fabric, but it might be worth a small scale prototype!
Click to expand...

The paint effectively becomes the opaque layer, the nylon is just there as a substrate a few layers of the acrylic paint does a pretty good job of blocking the light. On the bits I did right there is no light visible through the material a few cm away from a 50w halogen, though I might need to revise my testing methodology after some steam came from the still-damp paint!

If I had a big enough bag that plastic would be a pretty good outer layer, you'd still ideally want something matt to prevent internal reflections but it wouldn't need to be very thick or light proof.
 
Are you just using one layer of fabric? If you are using two, you could sandwich some of the black polythene bag black and white paper comes in or even some aluminium foil to make it lightproof.


Steve.
 
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