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.

DIY camera articles by Mike Rignall

If you've  browsed the website http://www.glascope.com/ , which  I mentioned in my previous post, then you might have found these DIY  articles  already.

To keep the matter short,  the website,  http://www.glascope.com/ which is a great source of information on stereo and panoramic photography, has a collection of several articles on DIY cameras. Most of these are authored by Mike Rignall which appeared in the British magazine "Amateur Photographer".

Follow the link to get the  full collection of these articles.

I've covered some of Mike Rignall's cameras in my blog earlier. Search for "Wideboy panoramic camera" in google and hopefully you'll come up with many instances of Mike's handmade cameras. Check some of Steve Cox's albums in Flickr too.

I thank Mr. Peter of  http://www.glascope.com/ for kindly allowing me to use these pictures. He can also be found at the following ebay store.

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.

A very useful tool for retrieving dead sites

Many great web pages become defunct in course of time. There's a very handy tool to retrieve the information from dead web sites, provided  they are archieved. You can just paste your dead link in THIS web site and if you're lucky you might be able to look at the lost contents.

I fetched the contents of many photography related sites like that of Robert Monaghan's medium format site ( and sites mentioned there)  using this tool.

A good short read on panoramic photography

I miss Marco Pauck's panoramic web site which went defunct. Here's a short but interesting account of panoramic photography, by Marco, particularly using the Horizon 202 swing lens camera.

Exhibition of handmade cameras in Japan

I recently came across this pdf document  from "Photographic History society of Canada" about a handmade camera exhibition at Japan Camera Museum in Tokyo. It appears to me that  a number of handmade panoramic cameras were part of the exhibit.

It would be great if readers of this blog, particularly those from Japan provide some more information about the exhibits, particularly on the panoramic cameras.

Visit the website of Japan Camera Museum http://www.jcii-cameramuseum.jp/ (or a google translated version of it) for many interesting exhibits.

The website of Photographic History society of Canada is http://www.phsc.ca/

History of the 'Enhancing' filter

I quite often use the 'redhancer' filter. In fact it is my second most used filter after the polarizer. I own a Cokin P sized one and another made by Marumi, Japan. I rediscovered this article written by the inventor of enhancing filter, Howard G Ross from Robert Monaghan's medium format site recently.

A very good page on filters exist in Bob's archived site. To visit that page click here.

It would be great if someone can provide me a picture of Ross' enhancing filter.

The Photographica 73 show by PHSNE

Recently I've been to the Photographica 73 show organized by Photographic Historical Society  of  New England (PHSNE). This bi-annual event  offers members and the public an opportunity to browse and buy new and vintage photographic items that include cameras,lenses, accessories and old prints.


I was lucky enough to pick up a handmade 127 format  panoramic camera for $12 (!!!). I'll write about it sometime later.

If you're interested, visit the PHSNE website to know about their activities including auctions and about the next Photographica show.

Some more handmade panoramic cameras

Looks like this  website is related to Horsley Camera, UK well known for their Wideboy and other panoramic cmaeras. The website provides extra information on a shift pinhole and a stereo panoramic camera.

I also found a piece of instructional matter for how to make a DIY motorised 35mm rotational panoramic camera by Mike Rignall here

See my earlier post on Horsley cameras. 

I found a couple of example photos taken by Mike Rignall using his rotational camere in Photosig . 

Self published books on panoramic photography

I'm surprised to see so many books on panoramic photography available from  self publishing sites like blurb.com  or lulu.com

Some simple search phrases like 'panoramic photography' or 'panorama' can yield you a great many hits. Otherwise search by the name of your favorite panoramic camera or format like 'xpan', 'noblex', 'widelux', 'horizon 202','6x17' etc.

A convenient way to know about other panoramic photographers and their artworks.

The charm of palladium/platinum prints

Though this post is not about panoramic photography but on something I like no less than panoramas and that is palladium/platinum printing.

See some  mindblowing pics taken by award winning photographer Beth Dow. Her website being http://bethdow.com/.

Read her short biography here.

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

Old but interesting article

I found this article on panoramic photography while looking for some works of David Avison, a pioneer panoramic photographer of our times. The article is dated, but nevertheless worth reading. First appeared in the Camera Arts Magazine , you can find it here.

The Fotoblur Magazine

The photoblur magazine is a high quality photography magazine available as online and printed version as well. The online version is free to download. You can access the magazine at www.photoblur.com or have a quick preview at the Top favorites gallery .

Article on panoramic photography

I found this article on panoramic photography, by Debbie Hagan that appeared in Art Business News. You can find it here. 

40 great online photography magazines

I came across this link on 40 online photo magazines sometime ago. You can download high quality free pdfs from many of these sites. See also the 'comments' section at the bottom of that page, where some more magazines are mentioned.

To know about some more magazines I mentioned earlier, click on the 'magazine' label to your right.

Segmented and other alternative panoramas

I stumbled across this very good article by Joerg Colborg on alternative panoramas. He discussed about the works of some noted photographers who excels in segmented and other panoramic techniques.

I highy recommend that you have a look at the works of David Hilliard , Joachim Knill, Andreas Gursky , Susan Bowen and Tom Bamberger.

I thank Mr. David Hilliard for allowing me to use one of his great panoramas. You can view his artworks at www.davidhilliard.com