Building a 5x7 camera from scratch part 1 

Thank you, I do my homework, It's done exactly as the traditional view camera makers do it :-)

Make sure you keep your 'ribs' thin as it's quite bulky :-)

It can be really difficult in some places finding light proof fabric. For our photo studio in Montreal in 1980, the best we could find for black out curtains was heavy brown duck cotton.

Glad you like 🙂

@@ashsphotolounge I can't wait for the part 3 of building your camera :)

@@UltraSteaKME Trying to find some reclaimed mahogany to work up into the body ...

@@ashsphotolounge A nice wood for sure for such a project!😉 I'm particularly look forward to see how you will handle the different mechanisms, knobs, corner pieces, angular profiles, etc. Finger crossed you'll have a good time crafting the beast! 😃

Thanks Jonathan :-) more coming soon

Thank you :-)

Glad to have helped out a little :-) Just be meticulous, measure everything twice , and have faith in yourself. And cheers back at ya from London :-)

@@ashsphotolounge Well, my 8x10 bellows came together somewhat nicely. Not quite as nice as yours, but this is the first attempt, lessons were learned for the next set. Cheers, and thanks again for the tips!

@@explorer6 Absolute pleasure to be of help :-)

I am going to use neodymium magnets to hold the bellows in place rather than glue for this very reason - watch this space.

Thanks 🙂

Tanks for your comment :-)

Mounting the lens is no problem ... the issue is that a lens designed for 35mm will not project a large enough circle to cover medium format, let alone large format. Typically a 35mm lens projects an image circle that's not much larger than the diagonal of a 35mm frame as all it has to cover is the diagonal of the 24x36mm frame - or around 43.3 mm. The image circle of say a 5x4 lens is in excess of 162mm! see this forum article: www.photo.net/forums/topic/231973-can-you-build-a-large-format-camera-around-a-35mm-lens/

Hi and thanks for your comment. The material on it's own isn't particularly thick. The lining and stiffeners bulk it up a little, but the stiffeners are the things that will mostly determine the maximum compression. I used card mostly because it's traditional in bellows making, but also because most plastics give of toxic gasses when laser cut (chlorine or cyanide) . The bellows compress down to around three and a half inches minimum, which should be fine in minimum bellows draw with my wide angles using a slightly dished lens board. However, when I make my next set I will use thinner card, as the stock I used was WAY overkill, and a slightly shorter maximum draw length 🙂

Ah - I wondered how you do that!

@@ashsphotolounge Sorry, I can't give you precise instructions on that because I don't use Corel Draw. But I just Goggled "Corel Draw select by color" and notice that there are several tutorials about this procedure. I mentioned it to you because I remember once I took a .pdf to a laser cut shop and the guy did this operation in seconds. He was able to select all objects with the same solid color and deleted them all at once.

www.terrysfabrics.co.uk/products/tivoli-heavy-duty-waterproof-fabric-black?variant=29521099817054&gclid=CjwKCAjwzNOaBhAcEiwAD7Tb6EfYzrwwLZ1Xb-gITvQAS28l3ufow4nfSWkQt8_wV5Vm2mzMTG7cFxoCNX4QAvD_BwE

@@ashsphotolounge thanks, terryfabric was down when I wrote the comment. Thanks a lot, happy trails

Thanks for your comment Edd 😀

it's in preparation at the moment ... Work pressures meant the workshop had to earn my living rather than build my camera ... there will be part 2 very shortly!

@@ashsphotolounge Excellent news!

So, still in development? Or has it been finished?

Ah, HERE it is: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-f2vno6fMXlo.html

@@DoctorMikeReddy Cheers!

This is the fabric ... ru-vid.com?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbE9rcGgxQmdOeG5HOFQyMHFYemFlS1V0bU1XUXxBQ3Jtc0tsLVRjS0ZYblZhcVFxWGs5MDdiYTBJU0NYUUZpSTE0YjlhaWZBOVRZTDdWOXVOM2N0XzVsN2g1ODl0X0ZGRWdEeFA0Q3BKS3VHRElfRkJqYmNYNVBNYkRhM2tQOEJlTWhWSGx5UUVIWlZhUlJzOGZRbw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.terrysfabrics.co.uk%2Fproducts%2Ftivoli-heavy-duty-waterproof-fabric-black Depending on size and design it may be a touch too thick for shutter curtains.

@@ashsphotolounge thanks for the link!