A fantastic 6x12 swing-lens panoramic camera by Simon Lund

Sorry for keeping the viewers of this blog waiting for one year. I'm finally back with some more panoramic cameras. When I'm not posting, I'm actively collecting information on handmade panoramic cameras and I'm glad to share some of them with you today

Handmade swing-lens cameras are exceedingly rare because of the difficulties in construction. I have managed to cover only 3-4 of them before. Some months ago Simon Lund shared his story of making a 6x12 swing-lens panoramic camera and some examples of some very artistic and sharp panoramic exposures made by him.

This 6x12  camera was constructed using the 40mm lens taken from a Leica CL and the body was machined from Aluminum

Here are some more pictures showing the internals and outer appearance of the camera. A great machining example indeed.


 

I thank Simon Lund very much for this information. You can view his photographic website at simonlund.com and particularly the panoramic photographs from this link

Swiss made 6x12s

 

These two handmade 6x12 cameras were brought to my notice about a year back by the builder himself. They are made by a person from Switzerland. Very elegant in design and of superior craftsmanship , one is a fused body 6x12 and the other being bellows focused with a 6x12 back.


I'm providing the links below, where you can find a lot of details about their construction. 

Bellows focused 6x12

Fused body 6x12

More handmade (panoramic) cameras from Japan

 

Over the past years I came across quite a many excellent Japanese sites on handmade cameras, some of which I mentioned in my earlier blog posts. Today, I'm going to present another such informative Japanese site detailing bunches of handmade cameras, many being panoramics. 

I discovered the site many years back. The person behind this site also runs the Nagoya handmade camera club in Nagoya, Japan and the site is actively maintained. 

Note: The original website went defunct. You might find the old archived site to complement the information available in the new site.

A lightweight 6x12 by Dirk Fletcher

This is just another example of Dirk Fletcher's ingenuity. He used two old Zeiss Netter 6x6 folders to make a lightweight fused 6x12 body and complemented by a 65mm Super Angulon.

Dirk used an m58 helical and a Contax 21mm finder which provides around the same view for a 65 mm lens in 6x12 format. He also mentioned the details of calibrating the helical and that information could be very helpful for a beginner engaged in camera making.

You can find the details of the construction of this camera in Dirk Fletcher's blog post. Dirk has made many panoramic and other cameras over the years and his posts are laden with construction details which can immensely help a novice and as well as an expert in this field.

Detailed and close-up pictures of his handmade cameras can be found in his Flickr Gallery.

More handmade panoramic cameras by Kevin Strandberg

Sometime ago I made a post on the Palm Press 6x9 camera , where I mentioned about Professor Kevin Strandberg and  his handmade cameras. I recently received some more photos and details of   those handmade cameras from  Kevin which I would like to share with the readers.

Kevin Strandberg is  Professor and School of Art Director at Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington. Besides, he  is an expert in  camera making,  an activity he's indulging in since his teens. For a good read on that, have a look at this Washington Times article.  His website can be found here.

The two cameras in the forefront are two 6x12 cameras in vertical and horizontal format respectively. They were constructed using modified Cambo passport cameras and backs have much similarity to that of a Cambo Wide. One of the cameras is attached with a 65 Rodenstock Grandagon MC lens mounted on a matched focusing helicoid. The finder being salvaged from a broken Widepan camera. 

The second camera has a 75 mm Mamiya Polaroid 600 SE lens with a Cambo Wide finder. The film backs are Horseman 4x5 to 120 types and the lens protection bumpers were sourced from Horseman SW lenses.

The other cameras in the background are 6x9 wide angles made of Graflex XL bodies attached to Mamiya and Schneider lenses. The farthest one in the picture is still under construction and based on a Polaroid MP3 copy camera. like one of the 6x12s, it too has a vertical format with a Mamiya Press 75 mm on it.

I thank Professor Kevin Strandberg a lot for providing the pics and details for these cameras. You can learn more about his cameras , the artworks they produced and a book authored by Kevin  on these cameras from my earlier post.

You can read a short description on Kevin's "Franken Camera Project" from this Illinois Wesleyan University Magazine article.

A handmade 6X12 using Mamiya lens

Found in Ebay and brought to my attention by Olaf Matthes. A 6x12 medium format panoramic with Mamiya lens. Any information on this camera is welcome.

A great introduction to the Linhof Technorama 6X12 PC

 A great introduction to the Linhof Technorama 6X12 Perspective Control Panoramic cameras by Bjorn Petersen

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/hands-review/classic-cameras-exploring-heights-linhof-technorama-612-pc

A Folder to panoramic Conversion by Dirk Fletcher

Here's another new handmade panoramic camera by Dirk Fletcher.The technical details of conversion of this Zeiss  Ikon folder to a 6X12 panoramic can be found here

Dirk Fletcher has made many cameras including panoramic cameras over the years. The details of these can be found in his web site. For more pictures of this and his other handmade cameras visit his Flickr page.

New panoramic cameras from Holga

Recently two film panoramic cameras are launched by Holga, one is a 6x12 and the other one is an interchangeable lens 24x72 35 mm panoramic.


http://shop.holgadirect.com/products/holga-120-pan-panorama-camera

http://shop.holgadirect.com/products/holga-135-pan-panorama-camera

A mahogany 4x5 with 6x12 back

A real elegent masterpiece by Jack Tait. The camera is a  mahogany clad, aluminium frame 4x5 camera able to take 6x12 back for Panoramic work.

I thank Mr. Tait for providing the pictures and information on the cameras. To know more about him and his works, visit his website:

http://web.me.com/jacktait/Taitographs2/Home.html

Some more Jack Tait cameras

In continuation to the previously described cameras made by Jack Tait let me present some more from his inventory.

Here goes a little introduction about him: Mr. Jack Tait is a UK based camera maker. who constructed a number of beautiful precision cameras . Beside building cameras he  established  two schools of photography and one of design, written a few books and practiced as a freelance. He is also well known for building  'Taitographs', which are some very interesting analog plotting devices.

This particular camera is a 4x5 wide angle  metal camera with large amount of rising front and can be used with Horseman 6x12 back. The camera is now owned and used by a  professor in Lancashire for architectural work.

 

Do visit his website to know more about him, his cameras and other very interesting objects.

http://web.me.com/jacktait/Taitographs2/

 

I thank Mr. Tait for providing information and pictures of  many  of his handmade cameras.

Panoramic conversion of medium format stereo camera

This is a nice example of panoramic conversion of a medium format 'Sputnik' stereocamera. This 6x12 panoramic camera was handmade by Claudio Bottari, an eminent camera maker from Italy. The lens is a Schneider Super Angulon 1:5,6/65 mm and the viewfinder is salvaged from a Russian Horizont 35mm panoramic camera. The steps of the  fabrication process is given here.

Mr. Bottari made quite a few interesting cameras, panoramic back,  pano head etc.The details can be found from his website http://www.claudiobottari.com/

I thank Mr. Bottari for his permission to use this pics. Thanks also to Olaf Matthes who first pointed this website to me.

Handmade 4x5 camera by Jack Tait

In the next few posts I'll provide information about some of the great handmade precision cameras by Jack Tait. Please read my previous blog posts to know about other handmade panoramic cameras made by Jack.

This is  4x5 wide angle  metal camera with large amount of rising front and can be used with a Horseman 6x12 panoramic back. It is  now owned and used by a physics professor in Lancashire, UK for architectural work.

I thank Mr. Tait for providing the pictures and information on the cameras. To know more about him and his works, visit his website:

http://web.me.com/jacktait/Taitographs2/Home.html

The Horizon 205 PC camera

The horizon 205 is a medium format swing lens panoramic camera. This is manufactured by the same company in Russia, which also produces the Horizon 202 and S3 series of panoramic cameras. 

This camera utilizes 120 rollfilm and the frame size is 50mm x 110mm . The lens is a fixed 50mm f.3.5 - f.22 with vertical shift. The following shutter speeds are provided: 1 sec., 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/30, and 1/60. 

Thanks to the owner of nightphoto.com for allowing me to use these pics. For more details and pictures of this unusual camera visit this page.

Do visit Nightphoto's homepage to know about many more interesting and unconventional cameras.

Another 6x12 by Jack Tait

This is another jewel of Jack Tait's creation. Crafted out of mahogany wood , this has a rotating lens panel providing rise,fall or cross front. The camera was bought by an UK based photographer.

To know more about Jack Tait visit his website:

http://web.me.com/jacktait/Taitographs2/Home.html 

Master cameramaker Jack Tait and his handmade 6x12

I first saw a pic of this camera in Lee Frost's well known book 'Panoramic Photography' about five years ago. Recently while re-reading the same book, my interest in this camera got rekindled and thanks to Matt Sampson, who told me about the person behind this camera.

Mr. Jack Tait constructed a number of beautiful precision cameras including this one and all were sold away. Besides building cameras he  established  two schools of photography, one of design, written a few books and practiced as a freelance. Being a lover of analog gadgets I very much liked his hand built analog plotting devices or Taitographs: a discipline important enough to be the topic of someone's PhD thesis.

This 6x12 panoramic camera comes with a rising front and shifting viewfinder., making it very suitable for architectural panorama. In his own words, "This was made using a Mamyia 6x12 back and to my knowledge was the first  6x12 camera to have  movable rising front with a fully tracking viewfinder."

I thank Mr. Tait for providing information and pictures of  many  of his handmade cameras which I'll be publishing serially in my blog.

His website being:

http://web.me.com/jacktait/Taitographs2/

Do visit his website to know more about him, his cameras and other very interesting objects.

A Mamiya based 6x12 found in Ebay

Recently this 6x12 panoramic camera got sold in Ebay. The camera had a Super Angulon and a Mamiya roll film back.

Thanks to the seller who kindly allowed me to use the pictures.Thanks are also due to Olaf Matthes who brought this to my notice.

        

Another Matt Sampson ingenuity: A great Mamiya 6x12 conversion

In another brilliant 6x12 panoramic conversion Matt Sampson used the film holder from a Mamiya Press 6x9. The camera also uses a 65mm. lens from the said camera.  

The modified 6x12 camera required a new pressure plate because that of the Press camera covers  only 6x9 and 6x7 format. Matt replaced it with a new piece,  handcrafted from sheet aluminium. In the earlier model the helicoid mounted lens was fitted to the camera body with the help of a plywood box. The later version mounts the helicoid on an aluminium plate mounted to the box.

To know more about the construction details of the camera and in Matt's own words, visit this forum post

Visit http://www.mattsampsonphotography.com to view many beautiful examples of panoramic photographs taken by this camera

I thank Matt for allowing me to use the pictures and for some very helpful pointers. I also thank Olaf Matthes for bringing this camera to my attention.

Mamiya based 6x12 panoramic camera

This is a great 6x12  camera handcrafted by Steven Icanberry. This camera is based on a 6x9 Mamiya roll film holder. Steve added an automatic film counter and hence one can use 220 roll film as well,to  get 12 exposures per roll. The camera is easy to load, lightweight and well balanced. The present version is equipped with a Mamiya Sekor 75mm 5.6 lens. A newer version with Schneider Angulon is expected soon.

To know more about this camera and other handmade camera's of Steven visit his site http://alpenhause.com/

To see more pics of this and other cameras he made, visit the camera gallery.

I thank Steven for allowing me to use this pictures and for his encouraging words. Thanks are also due to Olaf Matthes for bringing this camera to my attention.

On Robert Monaghan's medium format web site

Most of us surely have visited Bob Monaghan's encyclopedic medium format site http://medfmt.8k.com/ a great number of times. Unfortunately I've seen in recent past, some of the great articles were no longer available from the site as the corresponding html pages became nonexistent.

I got very much delighted to see that most if not all pages are archived now and some classic articles are again available for reading.

The whole archive is available from here .

There are several articles related to panoramic photography available from the archive, and I'm just mentioning a few of them here. Look for related articles to learn more.

Postcard 6x12 panoramic

Vistashift 6x12 panoramic

Medium format panoramics