Chinese(?) made 6x17

 
The link for this camera was sitting in my bookmarks since 2011 and I overlooked it somehow. Looks like this is made by somebody from China with some very useful features incorporated like a dark slide. I'm providing the link to the archived web site where you can find the details.

Note that if you follow the link where it came from originally, you may land up on some very nice innovations from China , like this  medium format example.

Josef Koudelka: Shooting the Holy Land

https://aperture.org/blog/shooting-holy-land/?fbclid=IwAR3N38I33XIWIj_yMtYq7TnAuAJtYlpsNNypo5iDH4hWf6d9KNiyCTMXSzg

The Wide-tac panormaic camera : A handmade 6X17

Found recently another handmade 6X17 in Ebay. Appears that the film holder was made from two fused 6X9 film holders. The seller was generous enough to allow me to use the pics which is much appreciated.

The name of the camera is "Wide-tac". So far I didn't come across any source of information on this camera. Let me know if you know anything about this camera. Either directly email me the info, or use the comments section under the post.

A handmade 6x17

This is a nice 6x17 by Stefan Lindgren. The camera is constructed of aircraft grade aluminium and equipped with a 90mm large format lens. Quite some technical points are well discussed and illustrated viz. how to make the panoramic  viewfinder , pressure plate etc. I beleive most panoramic camera making aspirants will be benefitted from these guidelines. 

The details are available here:

http://www.stockholmviews.com/diyphotogear/diy_6x17_camera.html 

Visit his web page for more DIY projects along with other related stuff.

http://www.stockholmviews.com/

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 Panoraflex 6x17 panoramic camera

Panoraflex is a modular panoramic camera with solid metal body and supports lens shift. This is a 6x17 format camera, but with appropriate masks, one can get 6x12 or 6x14 sized pictures. The following large format lenses are acceptable with cognate adapters: 75 mm, 90 mm, 150 mm, 180 mm and 210 mm.

For more information visit the camera home page: http://www.panoraflex.de/

There are only a few companies left that make 6x17 cameras now-a-days. Both Fuji and Fotoman have stopped production recently. Hope that this camera will fulfill the needs of medium format panoramic photographers, who are not left with many options these days.

I thank Mr. Achim Hoos for allowing me to use the picture and for his encouraging words.

Fuji G617 video

A good video on the venerable Fuji G617 . Unlike the GX this has a fixed lens.

Panoramic camera construction guides (1)

Numerous examples of handmade panoramic camera can be found in the internet or in some printed materials. However, detailed guide for construction of such cameras are quite scanty. It often becomes very frustrating for a beginner to understand from where to start with, when building such a camera system.

SERENDIPITY SYSTEMS offers construction guides for a number of different panoramic cameras from easily available materials. These guide manuals are very cheap and contain easy to follow instructions.

The currently available guides include 6x17, 6x12 and 35mm panoramic camera construction. Soon, a 6x24 construction guide will be made available.

One can preview the blue prints from their website http://www.xtremedigitalphotography.com or visit the Ebay Store directly for purchase.

Disclaimer: I'm no way related to the seller and not endorsing any way his/her products

Homemade 6x17 panoramic camera

I came across even another design of handmade 6x17 panoramic camera. This camera was sold on ebay, and the details of the cameramaker is not available at this moment

The body of the camera was constructed from cut-away halves of a 6x6 camera, and lens focussing is done by means of enlarger bellows.

Thankfully Mr. Allan Chen got the pic and descriptions saved from ebay, and you can visit his blog for further details.

A great panoramic photographer: Jaspal Jandu

From the list of panoramic photographers by Ben McDermont, I found the great panoramas by Jaspal Jandu. Being an young photographer from UK, he travels across the continents with a Linhof Technorama, taking astounding panoramic pictures.

Here's a video of some of his representative panoramas:



His website is www.jaspaljandu.com and you can read his typepad blog here. To know more about him read this interview of Jaspal

Yet another homemade 617 panoramic camera

The 6X17 format has long been a favorite of panoramic photographers. This 1:3 aspect ratio is popularized by the venerable Fuji 617 models and the Linhof Technorama in particular.
However, these outstanding workhorse cameras come with a proportional price tag, which only few can afford. Hence, with many large format lenses at their disposal, many photographers went ahead to construct their own alternative 6x17 panoramic cameras.
I came across this particular design by Christian Holmgaard, in an issue of Magnachrom magazine. Here are some examples of the photos taken by his hombrew 617. You can download the Magnachrom pdf issue from here. You can have a further look at Christian's photo.net portfolio too which includes some more shots taken by this camera.

NOTE: To get information on other homemade panoramic cameras, click on the "handmade panoramic camera" label below.

The Cyclops panoramic camera

The Cyclops is a rotating lens 6x17 medium format panoramic camera. These were made in USA in 1990s and a few versions were built.

For more information and sample pics taken by this camera visit Gary Alexander's page at:

http://www.gaspweb.co.uk/cameras/cyclops.html

The following pages by Olaf Matthes contains some more details on the camera. Moreover, you can download the information brochure as well as the operating manual for Cyclops in pdf format.

http://www.nullmedium.de/panorama/info.html   and

http://www.olafmatthes.de/cameras/cyclops.php 

Also visit Graham patterson's site