Thanks to the prevalence of digital photography and the fact that camera stores seem to be closing left and right, it can be hard enough to find film in the first place these days. But if you shoot with ultra large or specialty format films, your job is even more difficult. Thankfully, Ilford is here to help.

Harman technologies Inc. — the folks behind the manufacture of Ilford film — are opening their annual window during which photographers can order as much custom-manufactured specialty film as their hearts desire. Read more…

Back in 2010, we featured the beautiful macro bug photographs of a Belgian photographer named Frans, who uses a custom laser camera rig to capture insects mid-flight. Inspired by fotoopa’s work, biochemist and photography enthusiast Linden Gledhill decided to pursue the same photographic subject.
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South East England-based photography student Mark Hilton came up with an ambitious New Year’s resolution this year: he’s in the process of building his own 20×16 “ultra-large-format” camera by hand. It’s a camera that’s designed to expose Ilford Harman Direct Positive paper.
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For their Chicago-based rent-a-photobooth business Fotio, event planners Nick Harvey and Theresa McMullen created a custom camera rig that looks like a vintage view camera. The ingredients — besides the wooden shell and bellows — included a DSLR and an iMac.
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A few weeks ago we shared a custom-built workspace by a photographer named Tom Brinckman. This week we have a glimpse into photographer Dan Jahn‘s dream studio, a 2800-square-foot space in downtown Denver, Colorado that Jahn designed every inch of himself.
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After seeing the “woodenized” Canon F-1n that we featured earlier this month, Vancouver, Washington-based photographer Charlie Boucher decided that he wanted to give the mod a go. Unable to find any wood shoots locally, Boucher decided to go with a somewhat different (but slightly related) material: cork.
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In the Star Wars universe, Lightsabers are hand-built as part of their wielders’ training, and each one is as unique as the person who made it. Photographer Matt Abelson seems to have the same idea about cameras: he builds high-quality one-of-a-kind pinhole cameras based on his own designs.

The Hyperscope (shown above) is one of his creations. It’s a cylindrical can camera that takes medium-format roll film, and is crafted out of chunks of aluminum.
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Want a personalized pencil holder for your workspace that features your photography? Check out this neat “photo-roll holder” idea by Tali Schiffer. The basic ingredients are an empty box and a bunch of duplicate prints of the same photograph. If you roll all of your prints to the same diameter (using a pencil or a paintbrush helps), you can line them up side-by-side to recreate your original photo while creating a loopy wall around your box. Depending on the size of your holder and the diameter of your rolls, you’ll probably need about 10-20 prints for each of the four sides. You can find a step-by-step tutorial for this project over on Photojojo.

P.S. In addition to being a pencil holder, you can also create one of these boxes for holding things like film rolls. It could serve as an “outbox” for rolls that need to be developed.

California-based designer Joy Kelley of How Joyful upgraded her camera recently and needed a new bag to carry it around in. Instead of buying or making a single camera bag, she decided to make a flexible padded insert that can be moved around from bag to bag. After creating a very nice looking insert and testing it out for a few months, she writes,

I have to say that I completely love my camera carrier, and changing purses is super easy! My carrier fits in all my purses, in some more tight than others, so when I need to carry more than just my camera I simply choose a bigger handbag, works beautifully!

What’s awesome is that her solution features moveable dividers just like the camera inserts you can go out and buy, which let you adjust the insert based on the gear you’d like to carry. If you want to try your hand at making your own, Kelley has written up a detailed step-by-step tutorial. The ingredients you’ll need are: some felt or fleece, canvas or fabric to protect the outside of the carrier, foam for the padding, a long piece of velcro, and standard sewing gear.

Camera carrier insert tutorial [How Joyful via Lifehacker]

Slit-scan cameras are used to shoot finish line photos due to the fact that recording a moving subject along a strip of film makes it impossible to miss any frames. Engineer and photographer James Guerin was interested in the distinctive look, so he went about building his own slit-scan film camera using an old Pentax SLR.

He ended up with the heavily modified camera seen above: a Pentax ME Super SLR that’s equipped with a special winding system that automatically moves film across a narrow slit as the photos are being exposed.
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