The great handmade panoramic cameras of Josip Klarica-I

Some time ago thru' a www.bing.com search I came to know about Josip Klarica, an eminent photographer from Croatia.  The opening page of his website http://obscuranova.com pointed to the great collection of cameras he has and particularly the two handmade panoramic cameras drew my attention.

This Panoramatic camera, handmade by Mr. Josip Klarica is a replica  of  the "Camera Megascope", a large format panoramic camera constructed by Friedrich Martens of Paris in 1845. 

The format of the negative produced  is 18X60 cm !!!. The lens is a vintage Symmetric anastigmat 210 mm made by  A. Ross ,of London in 1932. The exposure is made by manually turning the lens. Materials for construction include wood, leather and cardboard. 

You can have an idea how big the camera ( marked #7 in his webpage) is by looking at this picture. Quite obviously due to the huge size of the negatives the pictures they yield are also simply fascinating.

Mr. Clarica has a very distinctive style of photography and to know more details of it visit his website http://obscuranova.com and this link.

I thank Mr. Klarica very much for providing the detailed description and so many high resolution photographs of this camera. You can download and view the rest of the pictures in a ~17MB zipped file from here. Please note that the copyright for the photographs of the camera belong to Josip Klarica and you need his permission(s) for  using any of them.

Blog Update

I've been a little busy during the past one and half months or so to write any new blog entry. However, I collected information on some very interesting handmade panoramic cameras during this period. I'll write about them very soon, probably in a few days.

Meanwhile you can have a look at Josip Klarica's website, who has a very distinctive style of panoramic photography and  a fascinating set of handmade cameras.

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/

Panoramic conversion of medium format stereo camera

This is a nice example of panoramic conversion of a medium format 'Sputnik' stereocamera. This 6x12 panoramic camera was handmade by Claudio Bottari, an eminent camera maker from Italy. The lens is a Schneider Super Angulon 1:5,6/65 mm and the viewfinder is salvaged from a Russian Horizont 35mm panoramic camera. The steps of the  fabrication process is given here.

Mr. Bottari made quite a few interesting cameras, panoramic back,  pano head etc.The details can be found from his website http://www.claudiobottari.com/

I thank Mr. Bottari for his permission to use this pics. Thanks also to Olaf Matthes who first pointed this website to me.

Handmade 24x72mm flatback panoramic camera

This is yet another fine example of craftsmanship by the same person from Japan who made the 24x108 panoramic and the 6x6 fisheye.

The camera is made of two fused bodies of the Konica C35 camera and the aspect ratio is 1:3 , thereby producing a 24x72 sized negative. The lens is a 47mm f/5.6 Schneider large format lens.

For more details of the camera visit http://xxhandmade.exblog.jp/3298472

Thanks to the camera maker for allowing me to use the pics.

A 6x6 handmade fisheye camera

Though the Goody3 is not a panoramic camera per se, nevertheless it has an ultrawide angular coverage. Handmade by the same person who also constructed the 24x108 and 24x72 panoramic camera,this fisheye camera takes 6x6 exposures on rollfilm.

The camera has a very elegant design and finish.

For more details of the camera visit http://xxhandmade.exblog.jp/3298472/

Thanks to the camera maker for allowing me to use the pics.

A 24x108 mm handmade panoramic camera

So far aspect ratio's are concerned 1:4 flatback panoramic cameras are quite rare. In fact I can't remember any such factory made camera that utilizes 35 mm film. For medium format however a couple of models like the Japanese Art Panorama and Chinese Fotoman 6x24 do exist.

I recently found out some great handmade panoramic and wide angle cameras hand fabricated by an able camera maker from Japan.

The S. Panaragon camera is made from three fused bodies of 35mm cameras. The lens is a large format 65mm f/5.6 which produces  24X108 sized negatives !!!

For more details visit http://xxhandmade.exblog.jp/3298472/

I thank the camera maker for allowing me to use the pics.