Meet Dick Haviland, the last film re-spooler man standing

I recently came across the following  nice article on Dick Haviland , who runs the film re-spooling company "Films For Classics". The article was published in  B&H's website.

You can read the article here 

Some handmade panoramic cameras from portugal

After a long hiatus I become active again. Nevertheless, during this time of inactivity I  managed to get information on at least a dozen of handmade panoramic cameras, which I'll sequentially keep on publishing here.

Today I wish to present three cameras fabricated by Chave Treze from Portugal. He has several handmade cameras to his credit and I'll present three of his cameras which are of panoramic format. You can visit his webpage at http://chavetreze.blogspot.pt/

The first one is a converted Nikon F3 panoramic , with a Holga Lens that yields 24 x72 mm exposures. The details can be found here.

The second one one being a 35mm  slit-scan design. 

The third one too is a slit-scan but medium format. Read about the camera  here. 

There is a nice video on the last camera in action:

I thank Mr. Chave Treze for allowing me to use these pictures.

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

Great handmade 24x105 panoramic camera by Sven Keller

I first noticed Sven Keller's site couple of years ago when Olaf Matthes pointed it out to me. Mr. Sven Keller is from Germany and he had self fabricated quite a few cameras.

One of the interesting designs include a fused body 35mm panoramic camera. He joined three bodies of Dacora Super Dignette cameras to form an extended film path that can yield a 24x105 mm exposure. The lens cone was salvaged from a Mamiya Press 6X9 camera. Different Mamiya lenses were used for the camera.

Further details of the camera can be found from this webpage.

I extend my sincere thanks to Sven for allowing me to use the pics of his camera from his website. 

Do visit his gallery to know about many more handmade and modified cameras.

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 24x108 flatback panoramic film camera

This is a flatback panoramic camera providing around 4.5:1 aspect ratio on 35 mm film. The body was made out of a few sawn off Yashica MG rangefinders. The lens is an usual Super Angulon. For more details of the camera and examples of photographs taken by this camera visit the Clubsnap Forum

Thanks to Olaf Matthes who brought this camera to my notice and thanks to ed9119, a moderator of Clubsnap who took the pictures of this camera and granted  permission to post them.

The Lipari-Rama panoramic camera - II

Here go some more details of the Lipari-rama camera, particulary the parts involved in the rotaion. The previous  post detailing the camera body can be found here.

To see some fascinating panoramas taken by this camera visit Randy's Flickr page

I thank Randy for providing me the pictures along with their descriptions. Please note that the copyright for the pictures belong to him and you may not use them without his permission.

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.

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.

The Bluefire 'police' film

Bluefire is an ultra high resolution black and white film, useful for surveillance and documentation purposes. It requires a special developer for optimum effect. The negatives can be enlarged to sizes where common films fail due to unacceptable grain. Available in 135 format, a 24 exposure roll costs around $7.00. It is even cheaper when bought in bulk quantity.

Bluefire is available from Frugalphotographer