Medium format panoramas on a budget

[stray cat]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I recently became aware of the following 3D-printed medium format (6x17 and 6x12) cameras that seem to provide a relatively cheap and attractive gateway to medium-format panoramic photography. Having in the past hired a Linhof 617 from time to time and always harbored the wish that a Linhof or Fuji 617 or even an XPAN would magically fall from the sky - as you no doubt know, the cost of any of them is prohibitive - this seems to me to be a very neat and cost-effective alternative. Sample photos on their site and on Flickr etc indicate that the camera is capable of very fine work indeed:

https://www.maleficcameras.com/m617

[bags27]

Great, Phil!!! Thanks so much. Those seem awesome and extremely reasonable.

I hope you don't mind me piggybacking with this, which deserves some publicity. These are much more expensive and currently sold out in all sizes. But at least worth noting.

https://doragoodman.com/about-goodman-film-cameras/

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[stray cat]

1 hour ago, bags27 said:

Great, Phil!!! Thanks so much. Those seem awesome and extremely reasonable.

I hope you don't mind me piggybacking with this, which deserves some publicity. These are much more expensive and currently sold out in all sizes. But at least worth noting.

https://doragoodman.com/about-goodman-film-cameras/

Thanks Ken - those are rather glorious cameras too, aren't they? Prices are pretty reasonable I'd say, considering they come with lenses and backs.

Anything that is reasonably affordable and can liberate those desires to venture into panoramic or whatever medium format photography - and the Goodmans certainly give us some choice - is a great thing.

Any others that anyone knows about - please post links here - and if you have any experience with them, I'm sure we'd all love to hear it.

[4r36]

In your opinion, 6x12 and 6x17 are large enough for contact printing? I'm really tempted to get the camera, but my enlarger (Leitz V35) has only 35mm carriers...

Edited February 7, 2023 by 4r36

[250swb]

In the realms of he 3D printed cameras there are also Chroma Cameras

https://chroma.camera/

I have one of their 6x12 cameras.

[Ouroboros]

3 hours ago, 4r36 said:

In your opinion, 6x12 and 6x17 are large enough for contact printing? I'm really tempted to get the camera, but my enlarger (Leitz V35) has only 35mm carriers...

Contact printing either 6x12 or, especially, 6x17 would be a criminal waste of the point of the format.  You might as well crop a 35mm frame or digital file to 2:1 or 3:1, print a digital interneg and contact print that for a fraction of the cost of buying a  Linhof, Fuji, Widepan, Chroma et al including the cost of a 3D printed wide format camera template download.

Edited February 7, 2023 by Ouroboros

[4r36]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Double message (see below).

 

 

Edited February 7, 2023 by 4r36

[4r36]

23 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

Contact printing either 6x12 or, especially, 6x17 would be a criminal waste of the point of the format.  You might as well crop a 35mm frame or file to 2:1 or 3:1, print a digital interneg and contact print that for a fraction of the cost of buying a  Linhof, Fuji, Widepan, Chroma et al including the cost of a 3D print wide format camera template download.
 

Out of curiosity (sorry for the OT), is the print of a "digital interneg" a laborious process? I heard of Dan Burkholder's book Making Digital Negatives for Contact Printing, but never bought it. 

Edited February 7, 2023 by 4r36

[Ouroboros]

3 hours ago, 4r36 said:

Out of curiosity (sorry for the OT), is the print of a "digital interneg" a laborious process? I heard of Dan Burkholder's book Making Digital Negatives for Contact Printing, but never bought it. 

If you can print a black and white image on a sheet of inkjet paper, you can just as easily invert the image and print a negative  version on a sheet of digital contact film.  Many photographers use the technique to make contact prints with alternative and traditional processes, such as cyanotype, argyrotype and platinum/palladium  without the pain and expense of using a 10x8” camera and film.

Marrutt have free curves to download for various alternative processes.

[stray cat]

13 hours ago, 4r36 said:

In your opinion, 6x12 and 6x17 are large enough for contact printing? I'm really tempted to get the camera, but my enlarger (Leitz V35) has only 35mm carriers...

 

12 hours ago, 250swb said:

In the realms of he 3D printed cameras there are also Chroma Cameras

https://chroma.camera/

I have one of their 6x12 cameras.

I think the contact printing question has been well answered by Steve above, so thanks Steve.

And thank you other Steve for pointing out those Chroma cameras - they look extremely interesting as well. If you cared to say a few words about ownership of them, or could post a couple of images, I'm certain it would be of interest to all.

[250swb]

7 hours ago, stray cat said:

 

I think the contact printing question has been well answered by Steve above, so thanks Steve.

And thank you other Steve for pointing out those Chroma cameras - they look extremely interesting as well. If you cared to say a few words about ownership of them, or could post a couple of images, I'm certain it would be of interest to all.

I've not had my Chroma Six:12 for very long but like a lot of 3D printed cameras it has it's quirks and foibles. It comes with adapters to allow 6x9 and 6x6 as well, but basically you get 60% of what you need to get up and running and you are on your own. I saw it as an upgrade to my home made panoramic 'Holga-gon', a panoramic Holga with a 90mm Angulon on a helical focusing mount and grafted together with various adapters. The Holga-gon worked very well and the Chroma is a more solid version of that although I haven't finished tweaking it yet.

I started by ordering the lens cone for a 90mm Angulon which easily covers 6x12 and isn't too wide angle. I then calibrated the built in helicoid with a Wattameter rangefinder and focusing on an old screen from a Rolleiflex held against the film plane. Rough distances were marked in different coloured paints around the focusing ring. I then needed a viewfinder for the accessory shoe, the Holga came with a viewfinder on it but I didn't want to trash that and those for high end panoramic cameras are very expensive so ended up with a Leica 21mm viewfinder masked top and bottom with tape across the front. 

Then the learning curve. Just messing about with it showed that the Chroma needed screwing together a bit better than 'the factory' managed to do. And the pressure plate had burrs where holes had been punched out to read the frame numbers on the backing paper, so they needed to be sanded. The film back fits like a Nikon F back so the whole thing needs removing from the tripod to change film, and be careful not to get fat rolls by not keeping tension on the film when winding it on to the take up spool. The big bugbear that I'm going to tackle next are the frame counter windows on the back, not only do they slide open too easily but coupled with the faint numbers Ilford print on the backing paper the red window is so dark it's difficult to read the frame number on a dull day, so the camera needs taking off the tripod and holding up to the light just to wind the film on. I have some lighter coloured red filter gel but it will take some surgery. In the field I cover the windows with electrical tape just to be sure there isn't any leakage. 

So as it stands its the curates egg, good in parts, but I'm sure it can be fettled into an easy to use camera. I have some photos made with it on my Flickr pages, one such here

https://www.flickr.com/photos/steve_barnett/52158626082/in/dateposted-public/

 

Edited February 8, 2023 by 250swb

[stray cat]

Thank you Steve, this is invaluable intel to those of us thinking about acquiring one of these critters. And that picture of yours is absolutely sublime!

[Stuart Richardson]

I wonder if you guys have considered some of the cheaper Chinese made metal panoramic cameras, such as the Da Yi? That one is 1200 dollars without a lens, but it seems to me like it would be orders of magnitude more rigid and durable than a 3d printed camera. I realize that is a lot more than the 200 dollar cameras linked, but I think it compares extremely favorably to the Goodman ones that Ken linked. Meanwhile, there is currently a Fuji 6x17 with the 180mm for 1900 dollars on ebay at the moment...again, this is not at all a comparison to the 200 dollar camera, but since this is the Leica forum...that is less than half the cost of a typical Leica lens.

By way of encouragement, however, I will say that I once produced a big show for a gallery in Norway that was produced on the Fuji 6x17. The client had me develop, scan and print the 6x17 images. The prints were 100x300cm and 60x240 (220? I forget the exact length). I did 13 prints. A big enough job that I just flew with the prints to Oslo, as it was cheaper than shipping (he also had be do 25 1mX1m prints for the Museum of Forestry at the same time). The prints are stunning at size, as there is simply so much resolution, and since it is medium format, it is still pretty easy to scan at full resolution (3200dpi for the X5, for example). The only problem was spotting, which took me ages and ages even with my quite clean processing chain. I used the proceeds of the job to buy a 27 inch monitor (I was using a small Eizo at the time...). Having a widescreen will really make your life easier spotting these scans!

As for contact prints...I agree that it is a bit masochistic to shoot 6x17 for contact prints, that said, I am sure they would be beautiful...but small. I would personally say that 4x5 is kind of the minimum for most contact prints, but even then 5x7 or 8x10 make a huge difference.

Edited February 8, 2023 by Stuart Richardson

[250swb]

2 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

I wonder if you guys have considered some of the cheaper Chinese made metal panoramic cameras, such as the Da Yi? That one is 1200 dollars without a lens, but it seems to me like it would be orders of magnitude more rigid and durable than a 3d printed camera. 

I suppose it's a case of deciding when enough is enough, do I need an Ebony 4x5 when my Shen Hao makes the same images? But my plastic Chroma camera isn't going to bend, the body walls are thick and the overall construction is reassuringly chunky but light, and it's hard to imagine wanting anything heavy and complicated.

[earleygallery]

I have a Pinhole Blender camera which can take a 180/360 degree shot on 120 film. 

Good fun and as it looks like a biscuit tin nobody thinks you’re taking photos! 
 

 

[Stuart Richardson]

51 minutes ago, 250swb said:

I suppose it's a case of deciding when enough is enough, do I need an Ebony 4x5 when my Shen Hao makes the same images? But my plastic Chroma camera isn't going to bend, the body walls are thick and the overall construction is reassuringly chunky but light, and it's hard to imagine wanting anything heavy and complicated.

I missed the Chroma one. I was mostly reacting to the one Ken posted, some of which were 1500 dollars. At that price, I would prefer to pay a bit more and get a metal camera, but I understand that not everyone has that preference.

[bags27]

4 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

I wonder if you guys have considered some of the cheaper Chinese made metal panoramic cameras, such as the Da Yi? That one is 1200 dollars without a lens, but it seems to me like it would be orders of magnitude more rigid and durable than a 3d printed camera. I realize that is a lot more than the 200 dollar cameras linked, but I think it compares extremely favorably to the Goodman ones that Ken linked. Meanwhile, there is currently a Fuji 6x17 with the 180mm for 1900 dollars on ebay at the moment...again, this is not at all a comparison to the 200 dollar camera, but since this is the Leica forum...that is less than half the cost of a typical Leica lens.

By way of encouragement, however, I will say that I once produced a big show for a gallery in Norway that was produced on the Fuji 6x17. The client had me develop, scan and print the 6x17 images. The prints were 100x300cm and 60x240 (220? I forget the exact length). I did 13 prints. A big enough job that I just flew with the prints to Oslo, as it was cheaper than shipping (he also had be do 25 1mX1m prints for the Museum of Forestry at the same time). The prints are stunning at size, as there is simply so much resolution, and since it is medium format, it is still pretty easy to scan at full resolution (3200dpi for the X5, for example). The only problem was spotting, which took me ages and ages even with my quite clean processing chain. I used the proceeds of the job to buy a 27 inch monitor (I was using a small Eizo at the time...). Having a widescreen will really make your life easier spotting these scans!

As for contact prints...I agree that it is a bit masochistic to shoot 6x17 for contact prints, that said, I am sure they would be beautiful...but small. I would personally say that 4x5 is kind of the minimum for most contact prints, but even then 5x7 or 8x10 make a huge difference.

Thanks, Stuart. I didn't know about Da Yi, but this seems quite impressive with 20mm shift, and has a 60 day return policy!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Professional-DAYI-S-IIA-6x17-6x14-6x12-Multi-Format-Panorama-Shift-Camera-/271291659536?_trksid=p2349526.m4383.l4275.c10#viTabs_0 

 

[Stuart Richardson]

1 hour ago, bags27 said:

Thanks, Stuart. I didn't know about Da Yi, but this seems quite impressive with 20mm shift, and has a 60 day return policy!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Professional-DAYI-S-IIA-6x17-6x14-6x12-Multi-Format-Panorama-Shift-Camera-/271291659536?_trksid=p2349526.m4383.l4275.c10#viTabs_0 

 

I agree, it looked pretty interesting to me. My experience has been that if you find the right vendor, some of the Chinese cameras can be exceptional. The Chamonix is the most well known, and it is probably the best wooden field camera currently produced, now that Ebony stopped making cameras. Even then, the build was not that far off. I have a tripod head and some parts from a company called Luland, and they are very very well made. My hope would be that the Da Yi is on that end of the spectrum.