Home made 6X9 Wide Angle camera from old folder

[Mael]

Here's the story. I wanted a cheap lightweight 6X9 WA camera.

It had to be only built from dead camera parts. To begin the project I already had :

-A 1930 Voiglander folder wreck (made of very soft aluminium)
-A 65mm f/8 Super Angulon lens with Compur 00 shutter
-A 65mm Fotoman helicoid but with Compur 0 hole.



I have put the camera in boiling water with lemon juice to remove the leather and most of the corrosion. I had then to check if the camera was still light tight because it was very very oxydized.



Preparing the body for painting :



Black wrinckle finish achieved :



After having determined the lens register, I built the elements with 3mm plywood (the Varifocal finder is just for fun)



First blank try to put all the parts together, seems fine, but I was waiting a stainless steel ring to reduce the helical hole from 0 to 00 size.



Light sealing was made using aircraft windshield glue. It is black, it is strong.

When I had finally installed the shutter on the helical, I realized I made a 6mm mistake in determining the lens register.

The camera already finished.



Added an old german rangefinder on the top, a bubble lever. Main trouble was a correct viewfinder, did not want to spend 150 Euro in a 28mm finder, so I built this first tiny VF from Kiev scrap. Not sufficiently wide.



Finally built this from an Ikoflex viewing lens, Moskva intermadiate element and press camera front glass :

(I have enormous barrel distorsion in this VF but I have my full image.)



And the camera works. Film flatness is not perfect on such folders, but lens stopped to f/16 f/22 sharpness is acceptable.

[sevo]

Neat work. But if you should consider doing it over again: Using a Mamiya Press film holder rather than a old folder would have delivered a more accurate transport and better film planarity, and might even have saved some work.

[Mael]

Yes I know about the film backs. But the goal was to build it only from what I had !

[Gary E]

This is a commendable effort indeed. I've always wanted to make a wide from the Mamiya Press, but to do it with what you've got on hand is such a "Macguyver" thing to do! Congrats

[Solinar]

That Fotoman helical is the key ingredient. What a convenient item to have laying around. It probably was the nexus of the project.

The Schneider 65 SA should give good coverage for 6x9, since you'll only be using an image circle of approximately 100mm, which is a portion of its 160mm coverage for a 4x5.

Fotoman never got around to introducing their 6x9 camera. So, it looks like that you beat them to it. I've seen other DIY built WA 6x9's based on an a Graflex XL stripped down to a basic body shell. Those are larger and heavier - plus they utilize a Graflok back.

Good work - you now have a compact hand-held WA medium format camera.

[buzzardkid]

Thanks Mael for posting the work-in-progress shots.

I really like the looks of that camera, as well as the 6x9 format and the images it produces! 'Acceptable sharpness' is a bit of an understatement, I'd say!

[buzzardkid]

PS, I love the portrait 'Melissa' you have in that gallery!

Must have been ground glass focusing, seeing how fast the sharpness drops off with the f8 aperture? How did you achive this?

[newspaperguy]

Congratulations on the ultimate recycling project.

[Frank Petronio]

Very Nice.

Now add a shift and ground glass ;-)

Some people gut an old cheap 35mm SLR lens to make a helicoid for even less money.

[gandalfk7]

this is a very nice work indeed!!

[fotoman617]

Originally Posted by Solinar

That Fotoman helical is the key ingredient.
Fotoman never got around to introducing their 6x9 camera. So, it looks like that you beat them to it.

Actually, we did build our 6x9 camera (only 50 units), of which the very last unit shipped just this past week.

[Mael]

Originally Posted by CLE-RF

PS, I love the portrait 'Melissa' you have in that gallery!

Must have been ground glass focusing, seeing how fast the sharpness drops off with the f8 aperture? How did you achive this?

I focused on the ground glass and put the sharpness where I wanted it to be. The bigger negative you use, the less depth of field you get at an equivalent aperture. In this case, forgot to correct the bellows factor, negative's underexposed, difficult to print...

[Mael]

Another picture made with this thing...



Sharpness acceptable, even if there's a slight fall off in the corners. That's life !

[pagpow]

Camera looks good; so do photos. Thanks for sharing.

[MaxElmar]

A very nice project! Well done.

The homebrew finder is especially impressive!

[David Murphy]

Very nice!

[zumbido]

Awesome. I've been working on a digital WA frankencamera with a pair of sony pocket digicam sensors inside a cannabalized FED-2... if I ever have a chance to get it working properly I'll share it here.

[chippy]

what a great thread, i love it when we see these 'how it came to be' cameras with some illustrating pics the results [pics] look interesting too!

Mael, the crinkle black finish was achieved how? special paint designed for the purpose or a particular other technique

[FPjohn]

Kudos

yours
FPJ

[Mael]

Originally Posted by chippy

Mael, the crinkle black finish was achieved how? special paint designed for the purpose or a particular other technique

It is wrinckle finish paint for car restoration. One first coat, a second 10 min later, and after 2 hours a large last heavy coat. Paint do not work under 25°C so needed to put in the oven.

Next project will be trying to modify the camera with interchangeable lenses...

[jeanba3000]

Hello Mael and everyone

I had a similar idea sometime ago, to use of an old crapy folder and some old Super Angulon like yours, but my laziness… So Mael's creation reminded me this idea and finally, I did it (my way).

The project was not as ambitious as Mael's, I kept the cheap look, missing leatherette, old glue stains and rust… I removed the folder panel and its mecanism, the lens and the bellow, then I made the dark chamber with a soap carton box, glued on the body camera with stick cement and painted in black inside with artist acrylic paint I had from my time in art-school. I pierced the top and the front of the body to pass a shutter release cable, and glued on top an accessory mount taken from an old Lubitel, so I could use a two bubble level. And I don't have a finder, so I checked the field with a ground glass and engraved some markings on top to figure the horizontal field.

The lens is a tiny f/8 47mm Super Angulon from the '60s (nearly 90° horizontal field in 6x9 !), with a dedicated focusing mount. I chose a fixed rise of the lens, about 6 mm, to have the horizon under the center of the field.
The camera weights about 600g, pretty light.



I tried it the other day in Passage Jouffroy in Paris, a beautiful place, but not very luminous at the end of the day, so I had 1/2s exposure hand held, and the first results are from not very sharp to not sharp at all, but I think the camera is easily usable at 1/8s or 1/4s since it has no mirror relase and no curtain focal shutter, and it's pretty silent. Here is two pictures I like from the roll :

[GaryLH]

Originally Posted by jeanba3000

The lens is a tiny f/8 47mm Super Angulon from the '60s (nearly 90° horizontal field in 6x9 !), with a dedicated focusing mount. I chose a fixed rise of the lens, about 6 mm, to have the horizon under the center of the field.]

Out of curiosity, where did the lens come from with the dedicated focusing mount? The pictures at 1/2 second hand held is doing pretty good.. Love to see the results once you have good lighting...

Thanks
Gary

[GaryLH]

Mael

You did an amazing job. The results of all your hard work looks great.

Gary

[jeanba3000]

Gary, I got the lens in a Plaubel Peco Jr 6x9 complete set, and found the helicoid mount on eBay months later, it was advertised as dedicated to the 47mm and with a #00 shutter mount. I gess I was lucky to find it.

Another time, I found an old Angulon (not Super) 65mm on an helicoid mount that was the focusing part of a 24x36 lens ! By the way, the Angulon 65 is an impressively small lens and would be a perfect candidate for such a pocket DIY camera. Since we don't use movement such as we do with a technical view camera, we don't really need the large image circle of a Super Angulon and the Angulon is enough for 6x9.

6x9 format has a ~100mm diagonal (I mesured 103mm on my Franken'), the Super Angulon f/8-47 has a 113mm image circle, the Angulon f/6,8-65 has a 109,6mm image circle and the Super Angulon f/8-65 has a 155mm image circle, according to Schneider's 1963 datasheets.

[GaryLH]

thanks for the update jeanba3000

I know what to be on the look out for. I have a 65mm SA on a 2x3 folder. I have always like it. Have fun with your new setup

Gary