Swing lens panoramic cameras by Renzo Guerin

Swing lens panoramic cameras are harder to fabricate compared to their flatback equivalents. Apart from the mechanical intricacies involved, seldom one can use salvaged parts from other cameras like the body or film back /path. For these reasons, examples of handmade swing-lens panoramic cameras and related information are scanty compared to other types of panoramic cameras.

Over the years I was able to gather information on 3-4 swing lens cameras only for my blog and that's why  I felt very happy today when I stumbled upon not just one but two handmade swing-lens panoramic cameras.

I found them mentioned in the blog of Guilherme Maranhao. It appears that these two cameras, one a 35mm panoramic and other one being medium format were handmade by Renzo Guerin from Brazil. Mr. Renzo Guerin worked as an engineer and is from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Since his teens, he was into making cameras.

The Medium format camera is made of a 75 mm lens and the other one has a 35 mm.

The following video link shows clearly the swing movement of the 135 format camera which produces long 24x70mm exposures, longer than the traditional Horizon, Widelux etc. cameras.





I thank Guilherme Maranhao for allowing me to use this pictures. More details and other pictures of these two cameras can be found in his blog post.

Note that Guilherme Maranhao is an award-wining great photographer and a camera tinkerer too. You can find many posts on  DIY photographic techniques, Camera building and modification in his blog.

For more information on his artwork, exhibitions, awards etc. visit this page.

The 6X14 panoramic camera by Sven Keller

In one of previous posts I've posted about the 135 mm panoramic camera made by Sven Keller from Germany.  In this post, let me present another of his great creation , a medium format 6x14 panoramic camera.


The film back for this camera was made two fused Graflex 6x9 backs. For the details of constructing the back follow  this link.

The lens is a Schneider Super Angulon which was mounted on a Konica helicoid. More details can be found here .

I thank Mr. Sven Keller for allowing me to use these pics. Do visit his website (in German) for many other interesting DIY camera modifications  and other related stuff. The English version of his website can be accessed here.

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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The Japanese Handmade Camera Club : The league of extraordinary ladies and gentlemen

 I first heard about the Japanese Handmade Camera Club from a newsletter of Photographic History Society of Canada (PHSC).

This club is based at Tokyo and the members are accomplished camera makers who have fabricated extremely unusual and  novel cameras. In one of my earlier posts I've mentioned cameras made by Kensuke Hijikata of "Kentax" fame. Mr. Kensuke is one notable members of this club.

Mr. Sam Isamu Mabuchi of Japan Handmade Camera Club  compiled data on 53 cameras which were part of the exhibit at Tokyo and made it available as a slide show at   PHSC's website. There  were  so many handmade  panoramics, large formats, 6x9s and other novel cameras. I strongly recommend that you have a look at them. 

You can access the slide show  of these 53 cameras HERE. 

Later on, I found a video of the same camera club where members displaying and discussing their cameras. Note the panoramics specially. 

For the camera at 2:04 in the video, that tall, white, lighthouse shaped camera is a rotational panoramic made from a Pentax Auto 110  by Hijikata Kensuke. A report on that camera was published in Popular Photography many years ago. I wish to write about it and some other Japanese handmade cameras once I'm through with the copyrights.

A handmade 6X12 using Mamiya lens

Found in Ebay and brought to my attention by Olaf Matthes. A 6x12 medium format panoramic with Mamiya lens. Any information on this camera is welcome.

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.