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.

The Mercury Universal Camera project

This Mercury Universal Camera project looks very interesting and promising, Initiated by Zach Horton and others, this would be a real multiformat systems/modular camera able to be configured with a variety of film formats and cognate lenses.  Wish they include a 35mm panoramic back.

The details of the camera can be found here
A long discussion on it can be found at this APUG Thread

The Palm Press 6X9 Camera

Though 6x9 is not a panoramic format, nevertheless this 6x9  finds special mention as its seldom seenhas a very wide angle of view  and the same principle is used in making many panoramic cameras.

The camera was made by Palm Press, a Boston based company. The company still exists, however they don't make this camera anymore. This particular unit is fitted with a 35mm apo Grandagon.

I thank Mr. Kevin Strandberg for using these pictures. Visit his website for more information on him. Some more information on his handmade camera projects can be found here and here . Yo can have a look at his book for more details of these "Franken cameras".

In the  following video  Kevin  describes many of his handmade cameras and the artworks they produced.

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Handmade cameras by Kensuke Hijikata

Somedays ago while hunting for handmade panoramic cameras in the internet I came across this interesting post in photo.net . The post mentions a Japanese photographer and cameramaker who built a 24x72 panoramic camera made out of two fused bodies of  Konica 35 rangefinder, and which was featured in the March 1998 issue of Popular Photography magazine.

The post didn't mention about the cameramaker but I was able to get the copy of the magazine from my local library and found the cameramaker to be Kensuke Hijikata.

Kensuke Hijikata is a Tokyo based professional photographer/cameramaker who have fabricated more than 100 cameras, including a 4x5 TLR. He also established a handmare camera club which has grown up to 60 members. At the time of reporting he was making 4-5 cameras per year.

Pictures of four of his handmade cameras (along with pictures taken by them) were presented  in the Pop Photo article, including the 24x72 Konica based panoramic. The other cameras were a 6x7 with 80mm Schneider Xenar with a movable groundglass finder,an interchangable lens double railed 6x9 and another interchangable lens close focusing 6x9 technical camera. He named his brand of cameras as 'Kentax'.

The panoramic camera Kentax 2472 was equiped with a helicoid mounted 47mm Super Angulon. He also made his own viewfinder.

I was not able to find much information about Kensuke Hijikata over the internet, except for this site which is in Korean and mentions some of the cameras made by the Handmade Camera Club members. Use a suitable google translator to decipher it if necessary. It mentions about a very uncommon 110 film based panoramic camera( the only other subminiature format panoramic camera I know is the Viscawide)

I found another link that tells about  two mirror based pano cameras he designed which can use 4x5 or medium format film. Thanks to the original poster in the Yahoo Cameramakers Group.

I'll try to post the pictures of the cameras mentioned once I'm through with the copyright issues.

Another example of Thomas Roma's 6x9

Here goes another example of Thomas Roma's 6x9 handmade camera that recently got sold on Ebay.

This time I got more pictures of the camera so one can have a better idea about the construction details.

I'm very thankful to Mr. Bruce Kinch, (AKA Dedwax in Ebay:Please read the disclaimer to the right of this webpage) for kindly permitting me to use the pictures of the camera. Like many times earlier, thanks are also due to Olaf Matthes for pointing me to the auction.

A superwide 6x9 by Jack Tait

This is Jack Tait's another beautiful example of craftsmanship. According to him, this is probably the best engineered camera he ever made. The camera is now owned  by  a  City of Bath photographer. This is a superwide angle camera 6x9 able to take panoramic pictures due to its extreme wide angle. 47mm lens.

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

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

Thomas Roma's 6x9

Some days ago I found an older version of Thomas Roma's camera. This is a 6x9 camera with Mamiya Sekor 65mm obejective. To know about more of Roma's 6x9 see this post. A video clip of a recent version of this camera can be seen in this post.

Thanks to Olaf Matthes for pointing to the source of this information and I sincerely acknowledge noted photographer Mr. Jørund Aase for permitting me to use this pic. You can visit his gallery at:

http://www.jorund.com/

The Siciliano and Psyclops cameras by Thomas Roma

PSYCLOPS CAMERA from Kai McBride on Vimeo.

Sicliliano was a 6x9 format camera handmade by Thomas Roma. To quote again from wiki "In the 1970s, Roma started manufacturing and selling cameras under the name "Siciliano Camera Works". He produced the medium format "Siciliano". This video shows the related "Psyclops" camera. The format being 6X? :). The Psyclops was designed by Thomas Roma, inspired by Kai McBride, and built by Mr. Roma, Mr. McBride, and Dennis Santella. Read a story of the Siciliano from Joe Reifer's page.

For latest information, visit: http://sicilianocameraworks.com/

The Pannaroma camera by Thomas Roma

The "P-anna-roma" camera was made by Thomas Roma. He's "an American photographer who has worked almost exclusively since 1974 exploring the neighborhoods and institutions of his native Brooklyn, photographing scenes from churches, subways and everyday life, using a homemade camera"(from wikipedia).

Professor Roma built this camera from the gutted body of a Nikon F. The picture of which appears in Joseph Meehan's book. This I beleive one of the earliest examples of converted 35mm panoramic cameras.

Quoting again from wiki "He milled an adapter out of aircraft aluminum to go between the Nikon body and a Mamiya 50mm Sekor lens. He also made a bright-line optical viewfinder for the camera. The camera was called a “Pannaroma 1X3″, making a play on words between “panorama” and Roma’s wife’s name “Anna,” to create the word "P-anna-roma"." :)

Though I can't provide a picture of this camera at this moment, some example photos are taken by Danis Santella using this camera can be found here.

You can also read a 1978 newspaper article which tells about the inventor and his invention.

Some more information on Thomas Roma can be found from the Wiki entry , an interview of him from Columbia university website (where he's a full professor) and from his website .

I'm indebted to Mr. Olaf Matthes for all these informations. Do have a look at his great handmade panoramic cameras.

Mr. Roma made other camera's too including a 6x9. I'll write about it in my next post.