8x10 Camera Build Part Three

Camera in closed position fitted with Schneider F5.6 150mm lens

Camera now sporting a leather handle and a Nikkor-M 300mm F9 compact lens

The 8x10 camera is now completed and undergoing field testing with the arrival of the camera bellows and the viewing screen. The camera bellows were made by Keith at Custom Bellows in Birmingham who made the bellows for the ultra large 20x24 camera, again the bellows are of excellent quality working in perfect unison with the camera movements. The viewing glass was made for me by Rudy in Hong Kong using Yanke Glass which provides a very bright viewer thanks to the fresnel, it is the brightness viewer I have ever used and this will prove useful under dark and sullen winter skies with slower lenses like the Nikkor-M 300mm lens which opens only opens up to F9. I have used a Sinar 140 x 140mm adapter plate that can accommodate Linhof type lens panels giving me a degree of flexibility of the lenses that can used and tested on the camera.

A light leak test has been done and the resulting photograph is below, the test shot used a Schneider F5.6 180mm lens and Ilford's HP5 400 iso film, the photograph was taken at f45 at a 1/15 of a second and there was no sign vignetting. Using a 180mm on a 8x10 camera gives you a very wide angle of view and coupled with a 210mm and 300mm lens all types of landscape and even portrait work can be captured within the movements and extension of the camera. Having checked there was no light leakage or fogging of the film I have made a couple of modification to the rear standard of the camera to simplify and lighten the design of the camera. One of the nice things about building your own camera is the ability to alter and change things which I am continuing doing noting issues and where things can be improved.

After I have finished my MA next year I have a new 8x10 camera design in mind I would like to make building upon lessons learnt, building cameras is like photography, it is very additive. I have just taken the camera out on location in the Lincolnshire Fens and after using it I think I can make a camera just as rigid but with a third less material and weight in the pursuit of simplicity and portability. Using the camera is a joy out in the field, being a fixed back camera it can be used straight out of the camera bag with a lens fixed in place, no more mucking around with folding cameras which are fine on a nice day but when is windy, raining or below freezing a 8x10 folding camera is not much fun. Being a fixed back camera it is already inherently strong and rigid and fingers crossed there will be less blurred photographs from windy days.

Enjoy the photographs of the camera below and in the next post there will be a report on work done on the 20x24 camera which is behind schedule due to repairs to our facilities after the flood but Alan and myself managed to developed a couple of 20x24 black and white negatives and hopefully the contact prints will done soon when the builders leave.