Medium Format panorama camera

[Karl.t1965]

Fantastic... any idea how well the Malefic focuses?

The Chroma Snapshot from @stevelmx5 also has scale focusing, but I think you have to calibrate it yourself... ISTR by putting some tracing paper in place of the film, but I might be making that up. The Malefic appears to load the 120 film by dropping it into a slot, sort of Leica style (the video on the site shows him having some difficulty loading it). So calibrating in the way described above wouldn't work (you wouldn't be able to see the back of the paper). So I'm thinking that either he calibrates it himself (and not sure how he could without the buyer's lens), or each user has to calibrate it, I suppose by setting it at "infinity" and "minimum" and shooting a few shots. But at 4 shots per roll that would be very expensive.

I will copy your questions over to the owner and share back his wording. I know he had problems with the tensioner and I don't think he uses that any more.

I know when you buy the maker asks specifically which make and model lens you will be using and if he doesn't have the data for it will ask you to measure infinity focus distance from the front of the lens board to to the ground glass. I haven't heard of any problems with focus

 

[stevelmx5]

Fantastic... any idea how well the Malefic focuses?

The Chroma Snapshot from @stevelmx5 also has scale focusing, but I think you have to calibrate it yourself... ISTR by putting some tracing paper in place of the film, but I might be making that up. The Malefic appears to load the 120 film by dropping it into a slot, sort of Leica style (the video on the site shows him having some difficulty loading it). So calibrating in the way described above wouldn't work (you wouldn't be able to see the back of the paper). So I'm thinking that either he calibrates it himself (and not sure how he could without the buyer's lens), or each user has to calibrate it, I suppose by setting it at "infinity" and "minimum" and shooting a few shots. But at 4 shots per roll that would be very expensive.

The SnapShot has a standard ground glass so you can focus it exactly the same as the Advanced45 and Adventurer cameras. If you mount it on a tripod, and set it up a measured distance from an object, you can focus on the glass then mark the metal helicoid so you then have a scale. I’ve got mine setup with the 90/6.8 Angulon at 2’ (minimum focus distance), 6’, 10’ and infinity.

With regards to the Malefic, it uses the same configuration as the SnapShot, with the lens mounted at its’ infinity point (with a solid cone rather than the metal rods/bellows on the SnapShot), you then screw the helicoid out to move the lens further away from the film, thereby bringing the focus closer.

 

[ChrisR]

I'm sure @Andysnap will worry that I'm over-thinking this again... but I've worked out a few things, recorded here in case I lose the various bits of paper...

a) since the Ikonta winds towards the right, I'd also have to pan the camera towards the right to get overlapping frames in the proper sequence (this took a lot of head scratching because the image is inverted, but I think it's right).

b) the 75mm lens on 6*6 film (actual frame size 56.5mm) gives an angle of view for the frame of 41°. So if I was taking normal shots and wanted one frame to match the previous, that's the amount I'd have to rotate the camera on the pano head (also checking the vf of course, though at this stage I don't know the coverage of the vf).

c) the inter-frame gap is rather large on the FP4+ I've shot on this camera before (7mm), though it's presumably determined by the numbers on the backing paper. The length from the LHS of successive frames from earlier negative strips is 63.5mm.

c) the image of the back of some HP5+ that @Peter B linked me to shows that if I wind on to the last (4th and largest) circle on HP5+, the film would have moved 53.5mm, ie there would be a 4mm overlap. I'd need to set up the composition to make sure these "joins" were in relatively uniform parts of the image, rather than (say) where a tower starts. Taking account of the 7mm inter-frame gap, I think this corresponds to a camera turn of 39°! I'm currently assuming that the marks on FP4+ would be the same as those on HP5+ (worth noting that the marks on Acros are placed differently).

This is all highly dodgy, as my first goes at these calculations resulted in angles of view and rotation almost double these figures. So now I just need a chance to test it out. Among other things, this means attaching a QR plate to the bottom of the Ikonta, which means the case won't fit any more. From a recce yesterday, I've found a place where I should be able to get a 3-shot pano of Kenilworth Castle, corresponding roughly to a 6x17 negative!

In the quote above I was wrong, the Ikonta winds towards the left, so you have to start the panorama from the right. And, tada...

2006AZikBW Castle Pano by Chris R, on Flickr

Zeiss Ikonta 524/16, FP4+

I'll put it in the other thread as well, maybe, with some more comments...

 

[sirch]

That's great @ChrisR

In a bid to get my head around which way to pan I cut some 6cm wide greaseproof paper and rolled it on to a 120 spool. I then put that in the Holga (which winds to the right, i.e. the wind on knob is on the right) and with the back off, using B mode and a dark cloth I could view the image and mark the edges on the greaseproof. It's a bit awkward but makes it easier to understand what is going on. I've still to figure out how much to wind each framewith real film before I have a go.

 

[FishyFish]

That's great @ChrisR

In a bid to get my head around which way to pan I cut some 6cm wide greaseproof paper and rolled it on to a 120 spool. I then put that in the Holga (which winds to the right, i.e. the wind on knob is on the right) and with the back off, using B mode and a dark cloth I could view the image and mark the edges on the greaseproof. It's a bit awkward but makes it easier to understand what is going on. I've still to figure out how much to wind each framewith real film before I have a go.

I think with the Holga models, because the winder is ratcheted, if you advance it carefully you can count the clicks and from this know exactly how many to count to wind on enough to avoid overlapping or split frames. There's probably information online somewhere telling you how many clicks is required for a pano.

 

[Stephen L]

I think with the Holga models, because the winder is ratcheted, if you advance it carefully you can count the clicks and from this know exactly how many to count to wind on enough to avoid overlapping or split frames. There's probably information online somewhere telling you how many clicks is required for a pano.

Just to throw an idiotic theory into the mixture, will the number of clicks not vary according to how much film is left on the spool?

 

[Nomad Z]

Just to throw an idiotic theory into the mixture, will the number of clicks not vary according to how much film is left on the spool?

Yes, it will.

The diameter of the take-up spool increases as more film is wound on, which means the circumference increases. Hence, a given amount of rotation (ie, number of clicks) will result in increasingly longer bits of film being wound on for each frame.

 

[ChrisR]

My theory was that I shoot the first frame with the frame number in the red window, then wind on until the last circle prior to the next number, and turn it by the amount I'd calculated. The next frame gets wound on to the next prior circle. I planned to turn it by the same amount, even though the circles are slightly closer together than the last circle and the frame number (which I think explains the larger overlap between second and third frame). Then, of course, you have to wind on 2 frame numbers!

One advantage of devving it myself is that I now have the FP4 backing paper. I can confirm it looks exactly like the HP5 backing paper in the post above that someone linked to. I had convinced myself that they must be different, as I only ever saw 3 circles in the red window; however I think the first circle must be too faint or too small!

The first time I tried this, I wound the second frame on too much, right up to the next frame number, because I was waiting for the 4th circle to appear. The next time, the Arca Swiss plate came loose so I had no idea where the camera had been pointing. The next go was the successful one. I then tried another, but sadly the left most tower appears in both the second and third frames, and I also managed to get a hand or a hat in the third image!

I did slightly crop this, as there as nothing of interest at the extreme left and right edges.