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.
Read more…
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.
Read more…
We’ve featured large format LEGO cameras before, but what about wide format? Photographer Giacomo Citti created this panoramic LEGO pinhole camera that features a sliding shutter and film winders on the sides.
Read more…
Here’s a promotional/educational video by Canon that explains both how digital cameras work and how it manufactures them. Interesting fact: lenses are so precise that if they were to be enlarged to the size of a sports stadium, the margin of error would be less than the thickness of a business card.
Kevin Klein has a hobby of miniaturizing Victorian technology, and recently he made the world’s smallest wet plate camera using 1/32-inch plywood and other wood materials. The camera is only a little bigger than a quarter, and shoots miniature 1/2-inch square plate images.
Read more…
Caleb Barrett wanted a simple ring light to play around with, so he built himself one for just $20 using built himself a makeshift ring light using eight cheap compact fluorescent light bulbs. The lights are pretty dim and have a horrible color rendering index, but are fun to play around with if you’re just looking for something to experiment with.
Read more…
This video offers a glimpse into how Schneider-Kreuznach LS lenses are manufactured for the Phase One 645DF camera body. In the past we’ve also featured videos showing Canon, Leica, and Voigtlander lenses being made.
Photographer Mitchell Feinberg wanted to continue shooting 8×10 large format once his Polaroid stockpile runs out, so he decided to create his own 8×10 digital back. He spent over a year looking for a manufacturer and designing the back, and shelled out enough money to buy a good-sized house:
The development and production of two backs (I wanted to have a spare) was equal to the cost of a good size house – before the housing crash. I know it sounds insane, but the financials on it are not so bad: I used to shoot on average 7.5 Polaroids per photo, and I shoot between 400 to 500 images a year. That’s at least 3000 Polaroids. At 15 bucks a pop. Or about 50K per year, minimum. Polaroid was at one point my highest single cost.
Now he’s the owner of the world’s largest color capture back (two of them, in fact), which shoots 10MP photos. He uses it to shoot test shots before using film for the final captures.
Mitchell Feinberg’s 8×10 Digital Capture Back [A Photo Editor]
Image credit: Photograph by Mitchell Feinberg and used with permission
Want to see how instant film for Polaroid cameras is made? How It’s Made recently paid a visit to The Impossible Project‘s factory in the Netherlands (purchased from Polaroid a few years ago) to give us a neat behind-the-scenes look at the processes that go into making the popular film.
Photographer Dana Neibert made this unique iPad case using an old 8×10 film holder. It doesn’t look like the most comfortable way to carry your iPad around, but it’s a pretty creative idea.
Image credit: Photograph by Dana Neibert and used with permission
