Skip to main content

Freak of Stature

I've modded an old Ernemann bellows camera made for an obsolete film format. It can now make 10,5 x 6,5cm panorama images on standard middle format 120-film.
All geared up and ready to go!
It began with the purchase of a roll film back for my camera, which is of the obsolete but common large format standard which exposes on 9x12 cm film sheets, glass plates or - lucky me - the odd roll film.
Here you can see the modded original wooden take-up spool and the modded inserts for the feeding spool.
What I first did was trying to lessen the width of the take-up spool. Otherwise the 120 film would not wind up in the middle but go from side to side and the images would all have leaning horizons.
Loading the film. It goes from where the arrows are to the wooden take-up spool. The whole spool/winding insert also acts as a pressure plate.
I then found a way to make inserts which would hold the film feeding spool in position. Some rather stiff packing foam "drilled" through to accomodate for wooden pegs which were then glued in position made for stable inserts.
This is the small viewfinder set next to the lens. The exposed image is what is visible between the blue marker lines, as to my approximation.
I managed to load the camera with a roll of 400 ASA Fomapan. The widest aperture is 11 and the shutter presents the choice of B(ulb), 1/25th, 1/50th and 1/100th, so there are challenges. Tripod mount screw size also...

According to my crude trial I can fit 6 exposures on a roll of 120 film. 5 half rotations of the handle are necessary to get to the next exposure. When the film is first loaded 17,5 half rotations are needed to reach the position of the first exposure.

Update:
The first trial photograph:
It's not very interesting, but focus is there, at 2 meters which is minimum focus distance. This was 3 seconds at f11.
I'll fill you in on further adventures!

You will find 9x12 film plates in my camera shop getOurBooks at Etsy!
I also have a group on Facebook called Analog Photography & Camera Modding and DIY.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Celebrating 20 + Articles Elsewhere

  I have had a fun eight years burrowing deep into the world of film photography. Within a few weeks my 22nd contribution to 35mmc.com will be published. The website, which is run by a small group of people, publishes contributions from the global community of mostly film photographers. I have contributed sporadically with reviews and other articles on  photography related issues since May 2017. Almost as long as I have written about photography on this blog.   Disposable Cameras Canon QL17 Rangefinder Canon Demi half-frame Canon Lens Modding Olympus LE Camera Olympus Pen-F Yashica 50 mm Lens     Halina Lens Modding  4 Minolta Cameras Steinheil 50 mm Lens Instamatic Voigtländer Lens Modding Meikai Camera Ricoh Auto 35 Camera     Chaika Camera Modding Redscale Film   Hanimex 110 Camera  Canon 1980s Compacts Canon Prima Mini Camera Reviving Instamatic Cameras Focus-Free Digital Lens During this time I have also contributed a few art...

Chaika Leica

Well, here's a Chaika 2M that I bought from Alex Helios via Instagram.  It's a great full manual viewfinder half-frame camera. The wheel on the top is for shutter time selection, from B to 1/30th to 1/250th of a second. The square button on the front right of the camera is the release/exposure. The lens mounted on the camera in the picture is not the original Industar-69. The Chaika is a rare model compact camera since the prime lens is detachable. What is more is that it has M39 screw mount. But - like with the Paxette M39 system - you can't get focus with a lens from another M39 system. Unless you adapt the lens or - in this case - the camera (mount)! The Chaika mount is easily detached from the body by loosening four screws. If I want to mount the Leica thread mount M39 (LTM) lenses on the Chaika - which is my goal with this mod - I have to add 1.3mm to the mount. That is what is needed to change the camera's flange focal distance (FFD) from Chaika system to L...

Lomo-Modd-Orama

A Lomo Smena 8 camera with a faulty shutter. An Olympus Pen F camera. Part of a microscope adapter for the Pen. That's what I started out with. 45 minutes later I had a new lens! Mount The mount came off a microscope adapter. I got the adapter from my first (of two) attempts to buy an Olympus Pen F. There seem to be some unscrupolous ebay sellers around peddling useless Pens with microscope adapted prisms. Luckily - in hindsight - I got a microscope adapter with this first Pen. Which I now trashed when a Lomo Smena 8 without a future landed on my doorstep (figuratively speaking). Conversion / Havoc Smena I only knew the camera as a half-frame camera [Correction - it's a full frame camera!] called Smena 8 and hadn't thought to place it in Lomography-land until I read the name Lomo on the lens when it was already modded. Unwittingly I had tread the tiles of lomo-dom twice in as many weeks, also having put two rolls through a Praktica CX-1 which appears to be Gr...