Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
You didn’t ask to learn about bellows extension factors but we’re going to cover it with the most absurd camera that you may ever see!
Built from over two sheets of plywood, scraps of 2x6s, old drywall screws, and the cheapest 610mm lens that I could find on eBay, literally every expense was spared. I would be surprised if I spent more than $200 out of pocket to create this 10′ behemoth.
Lomography has today announced a very requested item from the large format film community – the LomoGraflok 4×5 Instant Back. While many large format shooters of the past might have used Polaroids, this new back is the world’s first that lets you shoot Fuji Instax Wide instant film on a 4×5 large format camera.
It costs only $134 while it’s on pre-order, going up to $149 once it goes on general sale. There is a catch, though. They’re not shipping them until April 2021.
The current pandemic has killed creativity in some of us, but it made it improved it in others. Some photographers have been finding creative ways to shoot portraits while maintaining the social distance, and Kyle Roper is one of them. He turned the front door of his house into a large format camera to capture “socially distanced portraits.”
At some point or another, many photographers will get the idea into their heads that maybe, one day, they’d like to have a go at shooting large format film. For those who shoot digital, it’s often a far-fetched fantasy. But for those already working with 35mm and medium format film, the idea isn’t quite so crazy.
In this hilarious short film, Jason Kummerfeldt from grainydays beautifully expresses that first 8×10 large format film experience and he does it in the entirely pretentious way that most of us hear from some large format film shooters. And it’s absolutely brilliant.
The task was clear – an original portrait of a Medieval Knight Sword Fighter (national champion).
So I planned to do a collodion wet plate of a knight with his armour and sword. My first thought was, that an original armor has no “color” so to say. You just see the reflections of the environment. That was the reason I wanted to shoot the first portrait in my garden. Unfortunately, the weather gods were against us and just after when we started a thunderstorm was on its way.
Large format cameras typically come in two sizes these days. They’re either 8×10″ or the more common 4×5″. But there is a size in between, and that’s 5×7″, and now the British large format camera manufacturer, Intrepid has added one to their line up.
About the new Intrepid 5×7, they say it offers all of the features you’d expect from a traditional 5×7″ camera, but at a fraction of the cost and weight, coming in at a mere 1.4kg. It uses many of the same parts that Intrepid uses in their 4×5 and 8×10 models, including fully independent front standard movements and linear focus.
So, I’ve posted my 8×10 camera on several photography groups and I’ve gotten a lot of interest. I figured I’d do a little write up for anyone that wanted to know more about the camera as well as see some images of the building process.
Large format film still holds a huge draw for a lot of photographers. It has a look that the relatively tiny digital sensors today (yes, even the medium format ones) just aren’t capable of. But shoot large format on film can be a laborious task. For many, the end result is worth it, but if you want slightly more immediate results, digital scanning backs are the solution.
The problem is, digital scanning backs for 4×5 cameras can be very expensive (and they’re not exactly common). In this video, Sean at Fotodiox shows us how we can turn a simple small portable flatbed scanner into a digital scanning back for a large format camera.
It’s called Bertha, it’s a gigantic camera built out of a desire to find out what photography can reveal beyond certain limits.
From the first moment I started experimenting I sensed that there are still many ways to go, past and present can merge, just as old and new technologies, historical knowledge can find new contemporary interpretations.
These days, if you want to shoot large format, you might have difficulty finding replacement parts. Large format cameras aren’t exactly as common as they used to be, and there aren’t many companies making spare parts for older ones these days, or creating custom pieces for odd-sized cameras.
In this video, though, photographer Markus Hofstätter walks us through how we can make our own ground glass focusing screens at whatever size we need.
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube.
His videos have over a hundred million views, have been extensively published by news outlets, and has even received recognition from a few film festivals, such as International Ocean Festival
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