If you build it they will .....er take photos

April 9, 2011 4:42 AM

Man builds large format camera out of lego, that is all.
posted by sgt.serenity (17 comments total)

Me and my photo friends were looking at this a couple of weeks ago. It's impressive but it would have worked a lot better if he'd painted the inside matte black to cut down the reflections, which are very obvious in some of the pix. Also, I think I'd have made it fixed focus but bonus points to him for having it focus.

The film holder struck me as potentially the most difficult bit to get right.

Large format cameras are essentially light-tight boxes with a lens at one end and the film at the other so the difficulty is all in keeping it rigid and not letting extraneous light in.
posted by unSane at 4:47 AM on April 9, 2011

unSane: "Me and my photo friends were looking at this a couple of weeks ago. It's impressive but it would have worked a lot better if he'd painted the inside matte black to cut down the reflections, which are very obvious in some of the pix. Also, I think I'd have made it fixed focus but bonus points to him for having it focus.

The film holder struck me as potentially the most difficult bit to get right.

Large format cameras are essentially light-tight boxes with a lens at one end and the film at the other so the difficulty is all in keeping it rigid and not letting extraneous light in"

Unless you're going for that "Holga" look.
posted by bwg at 6:05 AM on April 9, 2011

When I worked in the photo studio of a department store chain (now defunct, sadly), we shot all of our tabletop setups in 4x5. What an awesome, gorgeous format to work with.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:26 AM on April 9, 2011

Two things excited me about this FPP:

1) The subject matter
2) A certain word didn't have an 's' at the end.

Thank you sgt. Good stuff.
posted by Bathtub Bobsled at 6:44 AM on April 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I have a Master Technika 4x5 which I absolutely love, but the processing and scanning is a pain in the ass. For the longest time I couldn't equal the quality of it with digital but I figured out how to by shooting multiple exposures and stitching them together. I can now print bigger and better quality with the digi (a Canon 5DMkII) than with the 4x5. Of course it only works for landcapes -- impossible to shoot portraits like that.

Here's a pretty direct comparison

4x5 full frame

Digital composite (about 14 frames stitched together)
posted by unSane at 6:47 AM on April 9, 2011

This is very cool. I wonder if the second version is going to also try to take advantage of the various Technic pieces out there (especially for mechanisms to more finely control the focusing).
posted by davidng at 7:10 AM on April 9, 2011

Also, tempting to think what you could achieve with some mindstorms...
posted by unSane at 7:20 AM on April 9, 2011

I'd also like to see it customized with minifigs adorning the top. I'm curious to see the Mk. II and hope he posts a complete breakdown.

Next step: build a small slide projector from LEGO to display the shots.
posted by willhopkins at 7:23 AM on April 9, 2011

The projector would be a lot harder because of lamp heat, but yeah. LEGO DARKROOM.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:51 AM on April 9, 2011

One of the reasons that I love photography as a hobby, especially now that everything is digital- this and automatic-that, is the fact that at its heart, the principles are incredibly simple - and all it takes is light, a capture medium, and a bit of ingenuity to make the whole thing work. Thanks for posting this, sgt.
posted by OneMonkeysUncle at 8:42 AM on April 9, 2011

I think that should have read "Man builds large format camera out of lego and is 'COMPLETELY FREAKING STOKED.'"

Its pretty cool though.
posted by SpaceWarp13 at 9:00 AM on April 9, 2011

Projector could use high power LEDs. They are beginning to get that bright.
posted by warbaby at 10:20 AM on April 9, 2011

Yeah, I have a Master Technika 4x5 which I absolutely love, but the processing and scanning is a pain in the ass. For the longest time I couldn't equal the quality of it with digital but I figured out how to by shooting multiple exposures and stitching them together. I can now print bigger and better quality with the digi (a Canon 5DMkII) than with the 4x5

When I was doing a lot of 4x5 work, they made digital backs for cameras, but they were quite expensive and slow. I imagine these days they are not so badly priced and probably extremely awesome. In 2000 I think the digital backs were on the order of 20-30 megapixels.
posted by RustyBrooks at 12:55 PM on April 9, 2011

A cheap digital back is still over $6,000 and the best are still over $50,000. They are all medium format, too boot, and none thus far come close to covering large format. I mean they are awesome, but they aren't large format by any means.

Now, I do have a friend that got bored one day and put a P45+ on a Holga with a lot of gaff tape...
posted by ztdavis at 12:07 AM on April 10, 2011

Has anyone ever gone and built a large-format camera out of a flatbed scanner? I'd imagine, done properly, it could be pretty bitchin' overall.

Of course, you'd probably have to do something about the cold cathode lamp built in, and maybe find some way to simplify focusing with the whole ground glass thing, and so on and so forth…
posted by DoctorFedora at 12:00 AM on April 11, 2011

Yes, it's been done, by Andrew Davidhazy at RIT I believe.
posted by unSane at 4:10 AM on April 11, 2011

Here's a scanner as large format camera. There was also a Make magazine article a while ago.
posted by warbaby at 7:07 AM on April 11, 2011