Monster camera

[panoramic]

Certainly not the world's largest camera but it is big.

Here is a 16" x 36" camera that I made. A bit crude, but it works well. A smaller version using 9.5 inch aero film should be easy to make too. It beats having to deal with film holders.

Ron in Alaska

http://www.ronkleinphotos.com/Monster.html

[jstraw]

I'm impressed. What do you do with the negatives?

[PHOTOTONE]

Yeah, my question also...where do you get the film, and how do you process the negatives or transparencies (for color)??

[David A. Goldfarb]

Cool. I like the idea of building it around Cirkut film.

[panoramic]

Film is custom ordered from Kodak. Last time we ordered it was $5,000, but the minimum order has gone up. I still have 500 feet of color and 300 feet of black and white which will probably last me for a while. It probably costs $75 per shot, but with care, all you need to shoot is one image.

I have been processing 16 inch cirkut film for years in tubs and it is not a problem to get good uniform development even with color.

Negatives are either contact printed or digitalized for murals.

I hope to make an improved version this summer that fixes some of the little quirks that are annoying but not stopping me from using the camera.

Ron

[Terence]

Do you use a film leader to avoid using a darkslide when you replace the ground glass.

[panoramic]

The film has a 48 inch leader and about ten inches of trailer.

I can load the camera in daylight, then when the film magazine is on the camera, I crank the leader onto the take up spool until I can't wind it anymore, then I crank the rewind back enough for the film to be in the right area. This also tensions the film. There are top and bottom guides and that is all so you have to be careful to prevent film sagging. With daylight tests, it looked pretty good though.

Any size camera like this could be made, although bigger would be problematic, If I had the lens that could cover, I'd go for it.

[blaze-on]

Cool.

I gotta ask, what lens covers that?

[PHOTOTONE]

I have been processing 16 inch cirkut film for years in tubs and it is not a problem to get good uniform development even with color.


Ron

Is that "tubs" like "bathtubs"? or Tubes as in "toobs"

[panoramic]

Depending on the film size, I use rubbermaid dish tubs for ten inch cirkut film and cafeteria busing trays for the bigger negatives. The film is rolled back and forth like a Dead Sea scroll, not seesawed, it is always in the developer. It takes about two gallons of developer which is replenished so it lasts a long time. In my darkroom, I heat all the other chemistry to near correct temps and lastly heat the color developer to 102 degrees.

By the time I get it into the tray and then turn the lights out and get the film into the solution the temp is 100.5. When it comes out of the developer the temp is 99.5 so I've hit the temp just right. I've been doing this for 25 years and rarely lost a negative, in fact I can't remember when the last time I screwed up developing because of bad temps. I've processed over 1,000 cirkut negatives this way. Trust me there are ways of messing up the film, but this is an easy way to develop long rolls.

Ron