One of my current projects is (re)designing a camera for street portrait photography used by photographers in Afghanistan, India, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and many other countries throughout the world. There are a variety of approaches to the design but they all have in common the ability to process a paper negative within the camera. Re-shooting the paper negative on a built-in copy stand with some means of racking focus out to 1:1 enables the production of a positive image. Billy Baque, for whom the design is being worked out, brought to my attention an elegant design in use by a street photographer in Argentina. This camera is typical of a type that arranges for access to the interior of the camera through a back door. The same door is opened for purposes of focussing the camera.

This design typically has a hinged top lid with a viewer for image processing along with a red window to admit light for that purpose. These are masked off by various types of mechanism when a photograph is being made. Also characteristic of this design is a movable standard on slider rails inside the camera controlled by an external knob attached to a third rail that moves the standard from portrait position to copy position. Note also that the camera has two processing tanks. Stop bath is omitted in this case and a water rinse is typically done outside of the camera.

Another approach to the design is typified by a German designed camera called the Velophot. This Canadian patent drawing shows some of the distinct features of this design. Three processing tanks indicate the use of standard 3 part chemistry. The external viewer is mounted to the back of the camera where it can be used both for composing and focussing as well as for processing. The red window still appears at the top of the camera. Also notable is the use of a bellows rather than an internal sliding standard. Also notable is the use of a pair of access sleeves. Unlike the more common one sleeve design, the use of a second access sleeve makes working with wet plate techniques a possibility as well. Most of the camera designs include some kind of internal storage compartments for paper stock and finished negatives.

It is interesting working on this project at the same time I'm delving into a digital camera slider design. But I have always enjoyed playing at the interface between digital and film.

 

Just read the Guardian's post proclaiming Portland the number 1 place in the world to live . . . Woohoo!

As a photographer, one of my favorite areas in Portland is around the Broadway bridge. There is a great collection of industrial, rail, residential and commercial activity in that area. I should spend more time there with a camera!

 

- from the Cars in the Park series . . . Portland, Oregon

I'll be giving a presentation Tuesday at Core 77's Hand Eye Supply in Portland.

It's a great series of talks by makers and thinkers of various stripes.

About the Curiosity Club
Ex Curiositas, Scientia. We pledge to learn with out prejudice in pursuit of our mutual goal; perpetual noviceship. We admit that it is impossible to know everything about anything and thus we remain perpetually curious and perpetually novice. The Hand-Eye Supply Curiosity Club meets fortnightly on Tuesdays from 5:30 to 6:30. Each meeting of the Hand-Eye Supply Curiosity Club will contain a 18-28 minute lecture from a speaker who has an area of knowledge that appeals to the curiosity club. The presentation will be videocast on the Core77 blog along with any presentation materials. The series highlights an eclectic group of speakers across a broad range of subjects dictated by our curatorial interests in the areas of Culture, Design, Science, Technology, Art, Fabrication and Design Techniques and Lost Common Knowledge.

The Hand-Eye Supply Curiosity Club is a speaker series hosted by Will Lolcama, Tobias Berblinger and Core77's Hand-Eye Supply store

Curiosity Club

The original design for this camera included a built in LCD/pushbutton interface and a control knob to change exposure slits. The current project entails converting the camera to use a remote, hand held controller operating through a bluetooth radio interface. User commands are entered via a touch screen LCD interface.

This view of the interface shows the screen layout. The areas labeled Exposure, 360 Degrees, and 1/60 second plus the two arrows at the bottom of the screen are sensitive to a touch to the screen. The red dots indicate that the user has chosen to change the camera's angle of rotation. By pressing either of the arrows, the displayed angle can be changed. A press to the shutter speed button offers similar control over the range of shutter speeds.
Once the settings have been made, the user can touch the Exposure button and commence exposure. Once the exposure is under way, the bar graph above the arrows will indicate the progress of the current exposure.
Stay tuned for more details as the project moves toward completion.