This DIY slit-scan medium format camera shoots long photos

Udi Tirosh

Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

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Slit scan cameras are quite a unique breed. Rather then exposing a complete frame with every shutter click, they expose a small slit and advance the film while exposing.

You know whats cool about that, you can create very long photos, as long as your subject is moving in a predictable speed. (which will correlate the speed in which you advance the film)

Take this DIY slit-scan medium format camera from Hugo Cardoso. It was built on the remains of an old hand-drill, some plywood and some scraps.

The drill’s motor is used to advance the film, and a box keeps the light away. Quite a simple build. The results, however, are quite unique.

Hugo started with a hand drill.

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Which was fitted inside a homemade plywood box

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Gears and a potentiometer were added to control the film advance-speed

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And a narrow slit fitted over the film plain

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A plate was introduced to mount a 90mm Pentacon Six lens, and the build was done

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Here is a photo taken with this medium format slit scan camera

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And here is a short video that shows how the camera was built and how it operates


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Udi Tirosh

Udi Tirosh

Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

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5 responses to “This DIY slit-scan medium format camera shoots long photos”

  1. Rui Bandeira Avatar
    Rui Bandeira

    So cool!!!!
    Porto Rules
    :-D

  2. Michael Trende Avatar
    Michael Trende

    Nice! But how works the focussing?

    1. Karl Avatar

      Good ol’ zone focusing, I guess.

  3. Jyi Offer Avatar

    Haven’t seen this stuff in a while Lorraine