I was entrusted with the care and feeding of a Sinar Monorail 4×5 Large Format Field…

I was entrusted with the care and feeding of a Sinar Monorail 4×5 Large Format Field Camera and darkroom compliment. Basically, it's mine to use, not mine to sell. 

I need to remodel my basement bathroom a bit in order to seal off the light so I can use it as a dark room. I am waiting for the water heater to finish dying before I do that. It's halfway there… but that's a different story.

On to this story.

I made a film holder for my cell phone for the big camera. I think it's the first time a cell phone has been loaded into one of these cameras like a piece a

I was hoping to get the camera focus and the film focus in the exact same spot. I am close, but not quite right on my first try. Gives me something to fiddle with when I print the next iteration.

Basically I have a cell phone case with a small lens embedded in it that allows a cell phone to capture a very small portion of the 4×5 image area on the Sinar camera.

This thing is a powerful macro lens! It captures an area about the size of a quarter from 7 feet away.

I have files if you want to print your own at https://github.com/creuzerm/openscad-projects/tree/master/Sinar%204×5%20Monorail%20Large%20Format%20Camera I am probably going to make a iPhone case next for a friend to play with this camera and teach me a few things.

In album Cell Phone Sinar Fuschia Flower

I like this cropped, but otherwise un-edited photo.

The girls LOVE the camera. It’s the kind that is shown on cartoons, so of course it’s the bestest camera ever!

Cell Phone ‘film’ for the Sinar large format camera. This is a 3d printed ‘cell phone case’ that is also a film holder for the old-school Field Camera.

Over 7 feet. I am getting about 2X life size on the camera screen from 7 feet away. That’s just crazy to me!

A couple of shots of me hand-holding the cell phone with the CDROM laser lens to the camera lens through the Sinar camera at a box in the kitchen. This is a soda box at about 20 feet. Some SERIOUS ZOOMAGE going on here.

This is what the cell phone sees mounted to the back of a Sinar monorail 4×5 large format field camera. The cell phone can’t really focus on anything in particular and sees a lot of the inside of the camera.

With the CD-ROM laser lens installed, the cell phone seems to want to work ‘right’ as far as the Sinar camera is concerned. You can get some motions out of the camera and the cell phone doesn’t seem to want to loose the image.

This is looking at a computer speaker at about 4 foot away. That is a little brass screw.

You can see that the cell phone can see some of the CD-ROM lens and gives that weird circle in the lower  right of this photo. The image is actually upside down, in true field camera fashion.

I just love the texture and lens aberrations that this arrangement produces.

I modeled a 4×5 film holder in openscad and printed it to make sure I had it right. https://github.com/creuzerm/openscad-projects/tree/master/Sinar%204×5%20Monorail%20Large%20Format%20Camera

Here I am printing a 4×5 film holder cell phone case with a spot for a CDROM laser lens.

This is the CD-ROM laser lens installed into the 4×5 film holder cell phone case.

My 2 options that I’ve made for connecting a camera to a camera. I can bolt up a 35mm or a cell phone now. Next, I think I want to make a flatbed scanner adapter to pull full frame images off of the Sinar 4×5 Large Format camera.

These are the 3 options I have for loading ‘film’ into the Sinar.

I set up this quick ‘studio’ in the laBOREtory so I could take some photos of the flowers.

Last summer I started a fire by rubbing sticks together

 Luckily, it was caught on video. This was after a 6 hour day, learning about fire making 'from scratch'.  I made the fire set with my hatchet and small knife.

This REALLY makes me appreciate a Bic all the more.

The guy behind the camera was teaching 2 of us. A bit of language, so you can slap on the mute button if you want.

5 minutes of interesting video starting at an hour and 5 minutes. There was a LOT of prep work going into this.
http://youtu.be/c2xk7cU96lE?t=1h5m 

Back-Yard Backpacked last night

At least an 8 or 9 step hike. Let me tell you…

I was 'testing' my Kelty 20 degree down bag and a thermorest inside a bivy bag. I was thinking to myself high of 53, low of 46. Warm, but not too warm. Thermorest inside the bivy was a bit snug at first, but fine by morning.

How in the !@#$%^ am I going to remember this next month, much less next year. I need to log this.

There ought to be an app for that…

I can't find one.

So, this got me to thinking… I need to make a 'social' app where we can keep our gear lists, select our load outs for a trip, and 'score' the comfort night to night. Pull in the weather data.

You can select a piece of gear, see all the trips it was on, and in what range of conditions it was comfortable or not.

Interest?

Thoughts?

I've been wanting to take an old Sinar 4×5 camera on a backpacking trek

Mostly just because I can. I've been working on an ultralight backpacking setup knowing that this camera is HEAVY!

But I don't have much practice running film through it yet.

But tonight I started working on a 'digital' film holder for it. My Cell phone. CDROMs… Microscopes… various 35mm lenses where all tried.

The upside down photo of  a soda box was taken hand-held.

I think I am on to something…

If I can get the phone camera to focus sharply on the film-plane I can do both cell phone based digital and film tilt-shift photography.

In album 2014-05-07

An old Sinar 4×5 camera and various bits and bobs trying to get a cell phone to work with the camera.

A grainy photo taken through the Sinar camera with my cell phone. The camera flips the image.

I may need to find a camera app that allows me to ‘flip’ the image back. Or not. Working with the camera in it’s analog mode is fun too.

WordPress Appliance - Powered by TurnKey Linux