My first DIY 4x5" camera ;)

[pulatom]

So here it is, after ca. 3 weeks of precise woodworking I'm proud to present my first homemade camera. It's loosely based on a 1839 Daguerre's camera, with a little cosmetic lifting. I finished it with wax and applied some petroleum jelly to the interior to allow smooth focusing.
It uses a shutterless 210mm f4.5 Poloxer (polish copy of Tessar) lens, so lens cap shuttering is required (the fastest speed I can reach by this method is about 1/4-1/8s). The black knob on the top is for blocking the back box, so it won't move while the film holder is inserted.
Here are the photos, I'll post some samples in the near future .

[Attila]

Congrats!!! Look forward your shoots!

[iangreenhalgh1]

[luisalegria]

Nice !

The spring back you made inspired me with new ideas.

[pulatom]

Thanks! It was a pretty hard time to make this back operate smoothly and precisely, but after some attempts it worked out.
Images on the ground glass look beautiful, I hope to get some film soon.

[iangreenhalgh1]

I keep seeing large rolls of film on ebay very cheap, such as a 340mm wide 30m long roll of Kodak aerial survey film that went for a few uk pounds, if you can work out how to cut it up in the dark, would be a very cheap way to shoot.

[pulatom]

[luisalegria]

There are quite a few people using x-ray film in regular LF cameras.

Even new X-ray film is very cheap.
You can order it from vendors of medical supplies, like these -
http://www.zzmedical.com/zencart/xray-film-c-28.html?zenid=8a5c951aa13ae190023c8304c9afb4d4

These people have 100 sheets of Kodak Green film 8x10 for $39 - thats 400 4x5 films, or $0.10 per shot. Thats as cheap as photo paper. I have seen even cheaper.

I haven't tried x-ray film yet. It looks interesting.
But there is some information on the internet.
Some is blue sensitive, some is green sensitive

Some info I gathered.

- Regular processing chemicals, processes etc. work well.
- they are sensitive on both sides so they may have less resolution (double image, where one image may be slightly defocused)
Some varieties are sensitive only on one side.
- they are very easily scratched when wet so have to be carefully handled. And because of the double surface you cant develop it in a 35mm tank by rolling them with a rubber band for instance.
- Effective ISO varies. One report is that the Green sensitive stuff seems to be about ISO 200 in daylight or ISO 25 in incandescent. There are different grades and sensitivities also, so one would have to do a lot of tests to figure out the rules for exposure.
- It tends to be rather high contrast
- Theoretially one could use a safelight to cut and load it (it is orthochromatic) but in practice it fogs easily, so assume darkroom cutting would be needed.
- It will need to be cut or trimmed for use on regular film holders as the sizes don't exactly match - 8x10 x-ray is a bit larger than 8x10 camera film.
- Its thicker than camera film so some holders may be tight.

Nice discussion here -
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?48099-X-ray-Film-example-and-comparison

[Tesselator]

Looks very cool!

Ya gonna paint it?

[pulatom]

Thanks for the info and the link. X-ray film seems ok. Wonder if there are any of them rated at pretty low ISOs, like 16 or 25.