L-45A Camera…Time To Bring It Forward?

[OK-944]

Figured I’d post this here, as there seem to be at least a few folks on this forum with a bit of industrial design/manufacture/marketing saavy…

After 30-odd years of DIY’ing large format cameras…I created the L-1 4x5, designed on graph paper followed by cardboard mockups, and finally to cutting flat phenolic templates for my router table cutter heads to follow - with the final product being crafted from resin impregnated, highly compressed plywood:





With this design I applied for and received a patent, and also a couple of industry awards, and was briefly courted by Linhof (Munich) for a possible buyout (which ultimately fell through).

A bit later, I brought my design into a high-tech computer assisted design environment (shepherded by Leon Fang, general manager of Timken Aerospace at that time, who’d predicted a three mil. valuation in three years), utilizing 3-D Solid Works for modeling, some pretty fancy machinery (up to 5-axis), and hard plated 6061 and 7075 aluminum with a bit of stainless here and there…to create five prototypes of the L-45A:









This model also garnered industry awards and magazine write-ups, despite its prototype status…and I was then courted by Sinar (Zurich), for a possible buyout. But, as with Linhof, this deal also fell through.

Thing is, while these companies basically inhabit the same stratosphere in the arena of designing/manufacturing ultra precise large format cameras, their design/manufacture DNA tends to be somewhat entrenched…and my product, while very well received by each company, would have diverted too much from the look and feel of their existing product lines, as well as requiring them to gear up with some new machinery and programming protocols, aspects which can be hugely expensive for companies such as these. A bit of irony here, as it is generally much less expensive for a “little guy” like me to do this…but lesson learned!

And so, after spending a few thou. more to create a new set of design drawings and CD’s for production (incorporating over 100 “tweaks”)…I looked around for someone to do a production run. Very expensive here, so I looked to China but quickly (and wisely) backed out.

Out of cash by this time and unable to secure enough via. loans…and with VC at the time (yup, I pitched!) mostly supporting multimillion, big tech/telecom projects with solid exit strategies - out of the blue comes a very talented CNC guy, who offered to have his company build my cameras with essentially nothing upfront, with my agreement to pay him back as I sold cameras. But then, more than halfway through a production run, this guy up and died (hang gliding accident), and I was again out of luck, now left with lots of gleaming but un-plated aluminum parts and blanks, plus production drawings and CD’s (which communicate with the machinery during manufacture).

The lesson here (I think) was that I was under capitalized (and too front loaded) and bit off more than I could chew - in creating a truly high end product which proved to be too expensive (for me) to bring into production, exacerbated by the fact that I’m basically an unknown entity living in the sticks of northern Vermont (no longterm brand identity/reputation).

Then again, whenever anyone knowledgeable in this (large format photography) arena actually gets their hands on this camera, the response is pretty much “cats pajamas,” so there is that, plus the fact that film photography in general, and especially that involving large format view cameras, has for some time been undergoing somewhat of a renaissance, and I sometimes wonder if I want to jump back into this project.

But to be honest, I see myself more on the design/creative side of things, and feel somewhat ill equipped to handle the larger arena of industrial product marketing (albeit in this particular market the numbers are not that huge…but still). Also, I’m now, at age 67, more or less retired, and really want to place my energies into my family and property, my “personal” photography, and into other interests, like wrenching on my 944.

Sad perhaps…considering that what this has cost me, in addition to the time and legwork, is the equivalent of a decent house - that I have in fact moved on from this project. But the thought that all of this has come to naught, that all of those parts, and the effort, will go to waste, and that a truly wonderful product will never reach its intended market, does tend to keep me awake on more than a few nights.

At any rate…keeping in mind that I have lots of production ready parts and blanks, complete sets of engineering drawings and CNC manufacturing software/CD’s for both the existing prototypes and actual production - if there is anyone here (or if you know someone) who might be interested in giving this a go (trade for a 911?) - let me know and we’ll talk!

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Funny.
You and your film threads had me re-googling a local favorite here in Virginia (earlier today).

And what does she shoot?

If I was to go to film. These cameras are the way I would do it....

If it's going to cost me a 911... well, I'm over my head, but, the love is there

edit.. does the lens offset in your pics give a tilt shift effect?

your creation is beautiful btw.

[masraum]

Wow, heck of a story. It's a shame you couldn't sell it. Too bad you couldn't sell it to one of the big boys at a discount just to recoup some of your expense.

Fingers crossed that something works out for you.

[Steve Carlton]

I'm stunned! I hope you can work something out with your camera!

[A930Rocket]

That’s a fantastic story and you are obviously very talented. Hang in there, as you never know what the future will bring.

Question: what is the purpose of the twisting of the camera? Do you have a picture of what that produces?

[OK-944]

Leakyseal - that woman is Sally Mann - and she truly walks on water. She’s extremely well regarded in fine art and photographic circles for her large format “wet plate” photography, which is a bit archaic and utilizes sensitized collodion-coated glass plates as negatives. The tricky part is that once the plate is coated, both the exposure and processing need to occur while the plate is still wet. I believe that Sally uses camera/plate sizes in the range from 8x10 up to 16x20 inches.

I sat across from Sally at a dinner table in 1987… at what was then known as the Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport, Maine. I’d been learning to coat papers with platinum, palladium, and albumen emulsions from a guy named Rob Steinberg, and Sally was leading another group with her process. Had some interesting conversation that evening!

The wet plate process has been around awhile…since the latter half of the 19th century, with one of the better know wet-plate practitioners of those days being William Henry Jackson - who, with all of his gear (including dark-tent, 20x24 camera, wet plate chemistry, and one would assume his lunch), ventured out into the wilderness, and when he arrived at a location with a good vantage point, he’d set up his camera and get the focus correct, then set up his dark tent, coat a glass plate and load it into a film holder to make it light safe, after which he would load the holder into his pre-focussed camera, make the exposure and rush back to process it. After making a series of these negatives, he’d travel back to his photo lab and make contact prints of his images, using the processed glass plates (at least the ones that didn’t break!

At any rate…Willam Henry Jackson was commissioned to photograph many of what are now our national parks - and in fact his imagery provided the basis for their establishment and preservation. I’ve seen some of these images, and they are, to this day, stunning!

A930Rocket - those twistys are all about image control, although I’d rarely use this camera in the configuration shown in the photo (the true purpose of which is to give a potential buyer some idea of the cameras available movements), I do indeed make use of one or more of the four specific movements which were combined to create this photo, namely: tilts and swings of either the lens or the film plane (or both), and vertical and/or horizontal lateral shifts of the lens and/or film plane.

At any rate, tilts and swings are used when one wishes to adjust the available plane of focus. In the photo below, for example (Stovepipe Wells Dunes, Death Valley), the immediate foreground is but a few feet from my position, while the distant dunes stretch out over several miles - which poses a bit of a challenge in terms of getting all of this into focus, and while I might come close by merely stopping my lens down to a tiny aperture to gain depth of field, this will often compromise overall sharpness by introducing aperture-induced diffraction. A better option here is to tilt either the lens forward on its axis, or the film plane rearward, or some combination of both - to a point at which the plane of focus will become more or less aligned with the “object plane” of the vast desert stretching out before me:


Edit: this file does not look sharp to me (the one on the earlier photo-thread looks better). But trust me, this image is sharp!

The lateral shifts are used to move about the available image area while leaving the image plane itself alone. A good example of a lateral shift would be if one were photographing a building, straight-on, which might otherwise require the camera to be tilted upwards, which can create some perspective distortion, in which the sides of the building tilt in towards each other. But with a camera employing shifts, one can keep both lens and film planes parallel to each other and to the building, while the lens itself is shifted upwards until the top of the building becomes visible on the focussing screen, without altering the planar relationships already established.

At any rate, such shifts tend to be utilized more by folks photographing architectural subjects, while swings and tilts tend to be used by landscape folks like myself. Hope this helps!

[LEAKYSEALS951]

That's great you met her. She lives about 1/2 hour down the road and I ride bike down there a lot, secretly hoping to bump into her at some point.

The quality of the large plates is amazing.

[sc_rufctr]

Freekin brilliant thread. I'm really impressed with your camera OK-944.

• Do you know what it would have retailed for and would it come with a front lens?
• Could you adapt it for a digital back?

I still shoot lots of film but I also enjoy the convenience of digital.

[GH85Carrera]

Amazing camera you built. We had a several old Kodak made 8x10 cameras with the old time lenses that were mostly for display.

I picked my first doctor here in Oklahoma City because he brought in a 100 sheets of 4x5 transparency film he shot in the bottom of the grand canyon. He hiked down shot a lot of really nice photos, and of course had to hike out. The exposures were just perfect, and it was obvious he knew composition and framing of a image.

I figured if he was smart enough to do that he must be a decent doctor.

[greglepore]

wow. I've always wanted to play in the large format world...

[OK-944]

Peter - While I’d originally aimed at a retail price (without lens) somewhere in the vicinity of 5K, this was back in 2005-06, at the then-predicted/assumed completion of the first production run. But even then, getting my costs in line to make that figure viable was extremely difficult.

(keep in mind that lenses for these cameras are interchangeable and available in many configurations and focal lengths, and thus are available separately from a given camera, unless a chosen lens or two might be included in a “package” deal).

Then again, Linhof or Sinar (I’d add Arca-Swiss also) could have likely asked twice my price point even back then, simply due to their long standing position in this industry.

These days…who knows? Likely in the 10K to 15K range. My best means of keeping the price down might be to lease a 5-axis CNC machine and do this myself - but that ain’t happenin’! Another thought…that 3D printing technology is beginning to incorporate metals, and if the resolution afforded by this process keeps getting better…then something like this might actually be accomplished relatively inexpensively.

But to me, nothing matches the look and feel of precision milled, aircraft grade aluminum. I like this so much in fact, that despite my camera’s very smooth appearance, I insisted that some milling marks be left visible on an inner surface plane, visible only when the camera is extended and then only by peeking down through the weight relief holes (which are visible in the “twisted” photograph of the metal camera). I love seeing these machining marks!

And about a digital back…yes indeed! In fact, one of my prototypes went home with Mike Collette, who started Better-Light (high end digital scanning backs) a few years back. Mike recognized that my camera provided a perfect (both ultra-precise and sturdy) platform for use with his amazing scanning backs - and we were on our way to working out a package when he became ill and passed away.

Further along the digital track…I’ve often thought how nifty it would be if a large format camera could incorporate a “touch screen” digital (CMOS sensor) back…large, like 4x5 or 5x7 inches (by incorporating many smaller ones w/incorporated auto-stitching?) - one which would allow the user to make basic adjustments to things like local (specific area) dynamic ranges, color balance, and maybe some cloning out of unwanted details…on the surface of the viewing screen prior to taking an actual photo. Another feature would be a provision to have an unadulterated raw file captured concurrently as a backup!

Glen - have always thought about that hike...down and back up - but my gear itself can weigh close to 40lbs in my photo-backpack...and this is without water!

Have to laugh about your Doc. I had a dentist awhile back, whose images were plastered all over his office...and he could not stop talking about all of his photographic trips to exotic locations. All I could do was nod at him and mumble through all of the gear he'd crammed into my mouth...while thinking: hmmm...maybe I'm in the wrong business!

[sc_rufctr]

"... Likely in the 10K to 15K range" sounds better than reasonable (I was thinking around 20k with the lens and matching tripod).
FYI: Leica is asking $8,995.00 USD for the new M11 (body only)

I wish you the best. It would be a real shame if your camera was never available to the public.
- Have you thought about Kickstarter? Although a product costing 10K to 15K may be too much for that.

[LEAKYSEALS951]

The idea of a removable large frame type digital sensor which could retrofit into vintage equipment (or something like you have made) makes so much sense, I figure it must have already been done.

[masraum]

Amazing stuff! Thanks for posting.

I am/was casually aware of 4x5 and 8x10 format cameras, but I had no idea that 16x20 or 20x24 was a thing, wow!

And thank you for posting the details about the twistys. I was aware of tilt-shift lenses for architectural (mostly in reference to 35mm), but your post cleared up and added a lot of interesting detail to my understanding.

[OK-944]

A couple more cool factoids about my camera…one - that its super rugged (the plater said something like Rockwell 65 hardness, but I have not verified this). On a very cold December a few years back, I was invited by the summit crew to spend a week on the top of Mt. Washington (NH) - “the home of the world’s worst weather,” where I was able to test my camera in this extreme environment. Here is a photo of my camera, after I’d left it on the summit for about two hours, during which time it became coated with rime ice (sublimated like frost onto its surface):



Thing is, the camera was still perfectly operable, and its streamlined curvy shape helped to mitigate the otherwise deleterious effects of the bane of large format photographers - wind! The combo of the camera’s form, plus that the bellows are very thin and lightweight (so that they basically just flit around on their own without moving the camera), combined with the camera’s ruggedness - makes it possible to photograph in some pretty extreme environments.

And that gray thing hanging off the back of the camera is a viewing hood which I’d custom made out of duct tape, as my (more typically used) “dark cloth” became a sail, which made things impossible. My duct-tape version spills the wind quite nicely.

At any rate…here is a photo taken with my ice-encrusted camera:



Edit: Peter, thanks for the earlier sentiment. About the only other time I had a thread attract any attention here was for the title itself: "Engine Out Equals Floppy Tranny?" After I'd dropped the engine from my 944 prior to rebuilding it...I'd noticed that the tranny had become, well - floppy! All became clear when I later dropped the tranny itself - and there was the flexible rubber mount!

[Scott Douglas]

So you're making this or made this prototype out of aluminum and hard anodized it?
It must 'feel' very nice to the touch given no sharp radii on it. I've worked with aluminum of the hard anodized variety and it is tough stuff. The piece I made was finish ground to size on a surface grinder, by me. Very messy, but very precise.
What type of tolerances are you holding/requiring on some of your pieces?
Just asking from an ex-machinists standpoint and as an interested photographer too.

[911 Rod]

Very cool.
How large is the camera? I used to use one that was 5 ft tall and 10 ft long in the printing industry.

[GH85Carrera]

To be honest, the price of used 4x5 cameras are pretty low. When our photolab shut down, we sold the Sinar F for just a several hundred bucks, and the Sinar P for just over a grand. The lenses were sold separately, and prices as to what they were.

And last time I looked (20 years ago) a sheet of 4x5 film was about a buck per exposure. So push the button, and spend a buck, for black and white. Color was even more. That is an expensive hobby.

We made up a camera for doing interior building photos. It had a 60 mm lens and a helical focus. The edges of the 4x5 were clipped, but it shot 110 degree view images and cropped out to a great 35 like format. So fantastic 12x18 prints.

[OK-944]

Scott - its been quite awhile since I’ve perused my engineering drawings…but a quick glance reminds me that, in general, we were working to +/- .005 for many parts, and down to either a +.001/-0.00, or a -.001/+0.00 (which for a different function might equal +/- .0005). There were a number of parts employing these “one-sided” tolerances.

This was a complex project…with many moving parts needing to interact with each other in different ways. There were interference fits, press fits, slide fits, and loose fits, depending on a required function. Tolerances for something like this are really tricky, and “ultra fine” can, in many cases, be counterproductive. Then again, to the extent that there are some interactive parts employing opposite one-sided tolerances…one might argue that the contact tolerance of those parts would be zero.

What complicated this further is an aspect of the hard-plate anodizing process (much more durable than just plain anodizing)…which is that while .001 inches of material is removed in the etching tank, .002 is added back during plating. This absolutely needs to be factored in during the design process. Also, depending on a given part and its desired function, one must be cognizant of the very slight degree of difference in actual plate thickness over the length of a given part, as electric currents can vary slightly from one electrode to the next, which is exacerbated further in the case of relatively long parts. I think of the long, metal on metal sliding/locking dovetail mechanism which allows my camera’s rear standard to move back and forth, which ended up operating with perfect, non-chattering (without play) smoothness and precision over wide temperature ranges…with virtually no lubrication needed saving for my occasionally rubbing the contact surfaces with my own nose-grease - how the entire process of creating this mechanism depended completely on working backwards to zero with full incorporation of all requirements going forward to make this part work. Kind of like how I make a photograph - able to see the final print and all it will take to achieve this at the point of my first viewing the subject on my camera’s ground glass. As an artist, I relate this ability to work with the totality in mind while also concentrating on each phase, to being “in the zone.”

Keep in mind here that machining is not my expertise, but as I was working closely with two senior engineers on this project, using a Solid Works program which allowed us to test all of the dynamic interactivity virtually (we could even dial in the sound that the rack and pinion would make during focussing!), also to test the effects of various types of stress (flexion, compression, temperature, chemical, etc.) - which, for example, allowed for the milling of weight-relief holes that made those panels stronger than if we’d just left them…it was my own expertise in the necessary workings of a camera which helped the three of us to become such an effective team on this project.

Rod - this camera measures a little smaller than seven by ten by three inches folded up, and weighs in at about 7.25lbs. Those huge, old, printing cameras you speak of...when that industry changed and those cameras were left to gather dust, some very enterprising photographers came out of the woodwork to salvage (free, or for a song) some of the truly amazing process optics employed by those cameras. (I was not one of those enterprising photographers).

Glen - Very significant, what you point out about the industry suddenly becoming flooded with used film cameras as folks migrated to digital, making it difficult even for folks like Linhof and Sinar to keep their own numbers healthy by selling new product. Things are a bit different these days, and there are a number of small-sized manufacturers becoming quite successful with the marketing of new large format cameras - although most of these are a bit more basic (and much less expensive to produce) than my camera.

[LWJ]

My prior career was making aluminum parts. We had full finishing capabilities as well. Mostly 6000 alloys.

The big pieces seem easy and cheap to make. I know nothing about lenses or the back bits that hold the film.

I would be happy to chat. I have been out of aluminum since 2002, so much more has moved off shore since then.

Cool story and product. I would think a digital back is needed for volume.

Opinion? Volume cures many ailments in manufacturing.