Grip attached on 110A Byron

Joe added one SL66 grip for his 110A version Bryon, with a custom made base.

Images from John Turner

2012/12/09 add
"a little harsh....camera top flash....with another one hidden for the background. Night before the start of deer hunting season.---Tmax 400 4x5 in Byron"

John took some pictures in his dacha with Byron and sent them to me, love it! so I share them with you. They were in Fuji 4x5 color negatives, lens is 127/4.7 Ysarex Rodenstock, original lens from Polaroid 110A/B camera.

John wrote to me " I took it on a really flimsy tripod...and forgot my cable release....but had one of those self timers that thread into the lens.  I set it to bulb and counted to 5 and covered the lens with a black cloth!!"

Original images John scanned are big on pixels, they are about 8 million pixels per image, so I downsized them, but kept part of image in original size, so you can see how detail the lens captured.

Bellows practices.....

Trying to make bellows in other colors than just black.....

There are some used professional Polaroid packfilm cameras like 180/185/190/195 in the market, becomes collectible items, and amazingly, they are still workable.

But for a bellows camera with an age of 60 years old bellows, it is less confident that it is still light proof.

It is time to replace one, for your precious collection baby.

Experiment SX-70 film on Byron

Don's ask, just watch.

Will post film exposed from Byron........
Stay tuned.

Vintage lens on SL66E

Exchanged Mamiya press camera with holder with my adapters, Bruce in Scotland sent mail to me, showed his SL66 with a lovely vintage lens, and he wrote to me "The adapters are great! Fitted my very old Sonnar to it and everything is good. Have a film to develop tonight so looking forward to the results. Here's a pic of the lens on my SL66E. Hope you do something amazing with the Mamiya!", " I've got a couple of pics of the old Sonnar in action but have yet to scan them. i'll get back to you when I do."

Well, Dear Bruce, we are still waiting.....

And thanks for your Mamiya Press, am planning some ideas on it....

2012/0/28
Bruce just sent me the link of his works on this wonderful camera+lens, enjoy it!
http://www.theonlinedarkroom.com/2012/08/sonnaror-tessar.html

Bruce, thanks for your wonderful blog, and I hope everyone who loves film and darkroom should all sign in it!

Bellows building, one of a kind

My way of bellows building began about 15 years ago, at that time I needed a new bellows to replace my old Linhof Technika IV, and by trying errors, I gradually learned the knowledge of bellows building.
By inspecting tearing down old bellows, I found out that ribs between inner and outer layers, are not fully cover the whole area inside, always one pair sides of the ribs have the point ends, and the other pair of sides shaped in trapezoid, and thus rows of triangle areas are actually two layers formed, what if outer or inner layer cracked? didn't 3 layers of structure make better protection? I wondered why, shouldn't these ribs cover completely for the best light proof?
Seeking for the answer, I searched many resources of bellows building, including one tiny article bought from Xbay as below (I regret to pay for it!)

In page 4 of it (total 11pages) did show the ribs are made in two shapes, one set in tip points, and the other set is not, but it did not tell you why. And by building bellows for more than 10 years, I can insure you, this article did little help.

Instructed by this article, bellows building needs an exact 3D dimension form, so all 3 layers- inner/ ribs/outer layer build around the form, but when paste the ribs, there are problems when meet the corner, so the compromise happens, two sides of ribs keep the shapes needed, that is, tip corners, but other two sides had to be cut into trapezoid, what a pity!

And the article did not reveal the fact that, for fitting these compromise, 3D dimension form actually can not be made in EXACT dimension of bellows! 

I kept search for answers for years, and I do find it! It is a compromise of mass production and the least feasibility. What a joke!
Google the web, there are people hand build their bellows, and generously reveal their way of bellows building, but many of them followed the mass production way, although they are made in hand.

So I built my way of bellows building, NO compromise.
These bellows are for the most recent batch conversion, you can see there are ribs fully cover the bellows, no triangle areas, and this is one of a kind, dared I say, now in the world.

X type Byron

Workshop part list

4/10 added
It's really hard to begin the course without first finishing the bellows, but ALL my participants this time seemed to stuck at this stage.....
I will try to instruct proceeding other steps instead, to get back everybody's confidence, let's see how to solve the bellows obstacle next....


Drag too long to finish the course, I took the pictures of the parts packed for the workshop, main part aside, these tiny little parts bother me the most, I believed that there are something missing in the first parcel participants received, please help me checking your each bag for the parts, if there is something short, mail me.

I will continue add images for these parts, to complete the check chart (or the picture)

Clamp parts

Sliding/Rotating lock parts

RF parts

Lens board/Bellows parts

Standard Lock parts

RF housing parts

GG panel parts

Here is the list for contents of each image, not yet finished.

Move house, off line for 1 week.

I bought a house in a small town near Taipei, called DaXi, a 300 years old little town by the creek, surrounded by farms and gardens, and I have a studio room by  Shihmen Reservoir, where I could rebuild my darkroom.


So I will be not able log online for about one week.


Till then, thank you very much.




3/5


Finally, everything on its way.
Today I am packing those parts for workshop participants, still one did not make it, all cried out at the stage of bellows practice.


Well, you are just practicing single-layer paper bellows, what will it be when going to 3 layer real world bellows?

What a happy working day!

Today is a great day! everything goes smoothly, even my ten fingers are fine, no one turns swollen.
Ha!

Welcome a new system into the family

Fetched Ellen from airport last night, she came from NY city, for a lecture hold in Taipei, and brought bunch load of camera items I bought from eBay these year round. I bidd some items from ebay and asked sellers send them to Jeff's place, who lives in NY, then at the chance that Ellen coming to Taipei, she carries those stuff for me.

Overweight, she cried out as we met in the visiting hall, truly, a big case full of my equipment, and so many items I even don't remember ever bidding. I took her to the famous night market for best local food, to ease her and her stomach.

Late at about 2am, back home, I tore down each package, and found one Mamiya Press 23 Standard body laid still, reminds me that is the one I'm gonna study for my snappy wide 6x9.

I've bought the Sekor 50/6.3mm already, and loads of 6x7/6x9 film back, just wonder the flange distance of it, so plan to find a Mamiya body as parts, to make a research. I would like to follow the idea as a Chinese did in following images, but since Sekor 50/6.3 lens equipped with shutter, focus ring on it, actually all I need is to make a box in proper length to connect the lens with film back, to keep them in perfect flange distance, that's it!

But the camera body I bid, is in GREAT shape! RF focus is right on tack, bellows is almost new to me, and as I mount on the lens and film back, I realized that actually I've built a new camera system already!