Maybe OT? Photography

[RB211]

Talking about Evan reminded me of one of his long deleted posts, an equatorial camera mount that moves the camera with the night sky so you don't get star trails with long exposures.
Also, I just picked up a used Canon 5D mkIII for 1/5th the original price with only 36,000 shutter uses. The shutter is rated to 150,000. It is a camera that I have ALWAYS wanted. Lots of excellent DSLR's on the used market right now, and unlike everything else that is absolutely crazy, camera's and lenses are not!! I guess cell phone camera's are distracting the masses.
So has anyone here made any cool things for photography?

[Jerrythepilot]

Years ago I made a camera mount to capture skydiver's leaving the plane. Triggered with a pneumatic shutter release. I have a first generation 5D, it's a great camera!

[RB211]

Picked up a studio grade, albeit old, Bogen tripod with a 3047 head for less than half the cost of just a new set of legs. Probably from the 80's, but the legs are solid, camera won't shake. The head needs a good cleaning and I have special grease that gives that smoooooth feeling. Not entirely sure I should grease it though... Cleaning is first order of business!

[The Artful Bodger]

I made a mount for a 120mm f5 refractor but I confess it has all be packed away for several years.

There are a few variations on the Soviet 'Fotosnaiper' in my store too, a genuine one with the 300mm lens and folding rifle stock thingy and a few long lenses that can fit to an old Stevens 22 rifle stock and the most recent is a rescued Novoflex 400mm Pigrif follow focus. The lens on the Novoflex is in poor shape and it was missing one on the barrel tubes so I turned up the parts for that and fitted an 800mm lens. All my camera stuff is Pentax K compatible.

Long lenses can be fun but they cannot avoid the laws of physics and the composition of our atmosphere.

[aostling]

. . . There are a few variations on the Soviet 'Fotosniper' in my store too, a genuine one with the 300mm lens and folding rifle stock thingy and a few long lenses that can fit to an old Stevens 22 rifle stock and the most recent is a rescued Novoflex 400mm Pigrif follow focus.

John, Here is your photo of me with your Fotosniper, taken in Wellington in 2010 before you moved to Ashburton. That house had a million-dollar view!

[RB211]

Well, I just learned that Carb cleaner softens up 40 year old powder coat nicely. Going to shelve this project until later

[The Artful Bodger]

John, Here is your photo of me with your Fotosniper, taken in Wellington in 2010 before you moved to Ashburton. That house had a million-dollar view!

IIRC I did offer it to you but I am sure a simple megabux would not buy it now!

[RB211]

John, Here is your photo of me with your Fotosniper, taken in Wellington in 2010 before you moved to Ashburton. That house had a million-dollar view!

Hate to say it, but people might think they are getting sniped with that, even in the USA it would cause scares. Too bad, I like the idea!

[aostling]

IIRC I did offer it to you but I am sure a simple megabux would not buy it now!

Thanks for jogging my memory. Current Wellington real estate is unfathomably dear.

In 1972 my flat at 20B Hobson St was NZ$20/week, just about the same as what I'd been paying for a small house in Palo Alto a few months before immigrating. The New Zealand dollar was worth 30% more than the US dollar.

[aostling]

To get back to the subject, I've taken up stereo photography with a 1954 Belplasca. This camera has two Zeiss Tessar 37.5mm f/3.5 lenses, and records two images each sized 30x24mm on 35mm film.

I haven't had to make anything for it, but I'll post this stereo image hoping it inspires somebody to take up the hobby. This Phoenix street scene is for parallel viewing if you can master it. If you cannot, turn it upside down and look at it cross-eyed.

[Doc Nickel]

I have a Bogen tripod with a head similar to the one RB posted. It uses a hexagonal plate that bolts to the camera, to make a "quick change" mount.

I have enough cameras (counting a few of the little, cheap video cameras for the shop) that I've been meaning to make two or three extra hex plates, plus one or two that have, like, a short arm to stretch the camera over a working area.

Haven't gotten around to it yet, though...

Doc.

[darryl]

I have most of a Chicago tripod that is the most stable mount I've had. I don't know what happened to the base- it had 3 castors that were very tough and smooth. I could stand on the base and push it around easily. All heavy stuff though. Today it serves as the best telescope tripod I have.

As far as custom camera controls, I made myself a mount that has all the motion axes on it, plus the ability to mount the camera such that the focal plane is at the pivot point regardless of camera type. You can mount any camera, then adjust it fore and aft to give best results for panorama shots.

Probably the most interesting mount was the one I made for the bike. The camera floated in front of the front tire on a balanced mechanism of levers and ball bearing slides. It was interesting to get video from 6 inches above ground at 80 mph.

Other camera related accessories- I made a magnifying jig that would give me a big screen look from the tiny view screen. It was formed to fit my face to block extraneous light, and the camera would mount at exactly the focus point. It worked great. The downsides were that it was bigger than the camera, and the other was that the only way to carry it was to face the magnifying end away from my body. The unfortunate experience with this is that I wound up burning a trace of focused sunlight across the view screen. Doesn't affect the pictures- I'm more annoyed that I let this happen in the first place. That burn mark is permanent.

I also have made a telephoto lens attachment jig that allows me to use these lenses with a camera that doesn't have any kind of external lens capabilities on its own.

I've also made a stabilizer for one of my cameras. It's balanced just for that camera, gives good results, and can be folded for compactness. The stabilizer arms are wrapped with lead for best effect.

As an aside, let me say that I went through lots of rechargeable cells of which none gave the performance of the original Sanyo cells that came with one of the cameras. At one point I carried one or two pairs of alkalines just for emergencies when the rechargeables went low. Best performance I ever got was from the non-rechargeable lithium cells. They were never dead, and gave lifetimes way longer than the best rechargeables. That's all I use in my cameras now. Three of them take the pair of double A cells- the other camera needs the custom battery.

[RB211]

I just picked up a used studio strobe, this is getting out of hand. I worked as a commercial photographer in college, used to play with all of this stuff long ago.

[sid pileski]

To get back to the subject, I've taken up stereo photography with a 1954 Belplasca. This camera has two Zeiss Tessar 37.5mm f/3.5 lenses, and records two images each sized 30x24mm on 35mm film.

I haven't had to make anything for it, but I'll post this stereo image hoping it inspires somebody to take up the hobby. This Phoenix street scene is for parallel viewing if you can master it. If you cannot, turn it upside down and look at it cross-eyed.

That’s cool!!

it worked for me!

Sid

[aostling]

That’s cool!!

it worked for me!

Sid

Sid, I'm glad you got it to "pop" into 3D!

For those that have not mastered parallel viewing, the trick is the look "through" the stereo pair, as if you were looking at a distant object. That makes your binocular vision parallel. If you do this correctly you will see three images; initially all will be out of focus since your are looking at infinity. Concentrate on the middle image. Get it to come into focus without converging your eyes.

You should re-size your window so that the total width of the pair is a little less than six inches. For the pair above it helps to concentrate on the title 1446 E Roosevelt. That will aid in getting the middle image to form as one image from what will initially be two.