Grind-o-rama , expanded film gate panoramics

 Recently, some builders re-introduced panoramic cameras built from standard 35mm cameras for which the film path has been grinded away to extend the film gate.

The shutter mechanism, pentaprism etc. are discarded, retaining only the film transport mechanism. A lens cone is attached to the body with a mated medium or large format lens. Depending on the camera and the extra space that can be accommodated for the extended film path,  3:1 or even longer aspect panoramics can be made.

Check this video which reviews one of such camera , The Presspan

You can find some more internal pics of the camera here.

I'll be back soon with some more Grind-o-ramas

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 Digital Horizon panoramic camera

The  Italian Silvestri company is working in collaboration with the Russian Zenit company to produce a digital panoramic camera. The Zenit is well known for its Horizon(t) series of swing lens panoramic cameras.

The new camera would feature three built in units of 5MP sensor and a f/3.5 28 mm lens, and three pictures will be taken simultaneously followed by in camera stiching to produce the final panorama. Because of simultaneous capture, moving objects will not pose any problem.

You can find more information from the following links available from Photoscala, British Journal of Photography and a very informative post by Michael Przewrocki.

A pdf information brochure on this camera can be found here.

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.

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.

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 digital panoramic by Walter Dubronner

This is again from the collection of Mr. Walter Dubronner. This strange looking camera can be considered as a camera manifold comprised of five cameras. 

The cameras are all interlinked and they take five pictures  simultaneously.Followed by digital stitching to make the final panorama. The only negative point is the high battery consumption.

This semi-circular crown like camera reminds me of a tiara and I named it 'Tiarama' :-)

I thank Mr. Dubronner for providing me the pics. and information about this camera. His other handmade panoramic cameras can be seen here and here.

 

A compositional/framing aid for photographers

The 'Visual Departures Visualizer' a nice gadget for previsualizing the scene to be photographed and for choosing the lens with the requisite focal length.The visualizer is made of plastic with a rectangular or square hole cut in it, matching the aspect ratio of the camera's format. A measuring tape is attched to it calibrated with an array of useful focal lengths.

One simply looks through the Visualizer's window from the required distance, moving it back and forth until the subject fills the window . Then the calibrated tape is pulled to "measure" the distance between the eye and the Visualizer to ascertain the focal length of the lens to be used.

This visualizer is available in a variety of camera formats from  B&H Photo Video

The link to this particular product is here

To have a look at the other side of the visualizer and in some other formats go to this page

I thank B&H Photo Video for allowing me to use this picture.

A paper made rangefinder

This is a novel gadget by Thomas Achtemichuk . You can customize,download and print this card sized rangefinder. Ideal for cameras that use zone focusing like my Horizon. I use a 1930's Simon-Brown instrument but this handmade rangefinder is possibly going to replace the old one.

Get this DIY paper rangefinder from here.

Pana-Vista: Another 3D Panorama viewer

Pana-Vista is a 3D-panorama viewer made my Henry Chung . Apart from 25mm x 54mm slides this can be used to view "Realist Size" mounted" 3-D Slides. To have more information on this slide viewer and price/availability follow this link. I thank Mr. Henry Chung for kindly allowing me to use these pictures.

Stereo panorama viewers

A few manufacturer produced hand held stereo panorama viewers. Notably the Japanese Gakken and the Super-view from Hong Kong. Though these are no longer produced, one can possibly find them in used market or online auction houses.

Keith Clatworthy maintains an excellent site on stereography. Click on the links to get more info on the Gakken viewer and the Super-view. I thank him for allowing to use these pics.

A cheap perspective control (PC) lens

Perspective control or 'PC' lenses are useful for architectural photography, to get rid of converging verticals.
All large format and some medium format cameras offer very simple lens movement or 'shift' function built in the camera body itself. For 35mm cameras one has to depend on expensive tilt-shift lenses. Major manufacturers of TS lenses or adapters include Nikon, Canon , Hartblei etc. The Loreo company came up with a cheap and simple PC lens, which can be used stand-alone for most popular SLR brands.

This 3 element lens has two apertures and offers 3.5mm shift off axis in any direction. The lens (and many other innovative gadgets) can be bought directly from http://loreo.com or various other sellers, including Ebay sellers.

QuickTide tide table

Another useful photographic gadget from Retrophotographic. The QuickTide tide tables the photographer easily determine high and low tide at any point on the coast. The photographer can well plan ahead his/her timing to photograph the coast.

QuickTide is availble from Retrophotographic

Suncard: Sunrise Sunset Direction Indicator

The Suncard is a handy device to know the position of Sun at sunrise or sunset during different months of the year. It is very cheap and credit card sized. An useful photographic gadget for any landscape photographer. Moreover, both US and UK versions are available.

This type of suncards are available from Retrophotographic or from Suncard UK or from Rothervalley Optics UK

DIY sun position compass

If you find the aforementioned sun compass a bit expensive, you can go ahead to make one by your own.

Just download this pdf file from Bat Systems and get it printed
Here goes some more info. on it.

See also my post on SunCard, a sunrise/sunset direction indicator. 

Sun position compass

This is a very useful gadget to know in advance the position of the sun, throughout the year. A must have for those shoot landscapes and architecture.

This gadget is available under different brands from here or here or here .See also my post on SunCard, a sunrise/sunset direction indicator

Panoramic projectors by Manfred Graumann

In continuation with the previous post, here are two pics of panoramic projectors that Manfred Graumann has made

The 'regular' X-pan sized 24x65 projector:





and the 'super' sized one for 24x93 sized frames:

Rediscovering PocketSpot

I felt very happy to rediscover PocketSpot, a really pocket sized spotmeter. I've first heard about it in www.photo.net quite some years ago but information about it became scanty later on. The review(s) are very positive about it. Besides being much smaller than it's Pentax counterpart, it performs equally well to say the least. My only desire is the incorporation of a hot-shoe mount, like Sekonic L-208 or Voigtlander VC meter.

I very much appreciate and wish to extend my humble support to such innovative ventures by small companies. Though it's a bit expensive for me now, nevertheless it'll be in my wish list.

For more information visit the inventors' blog:

http://meteredlight.blogspot.com/

For more pics and review:

http://www.butzi.net/reviews/pocketspot.htm