Photographer built a medium-format rangefinder | Hacker News Reader

Photographer built a medium-format rangefinder

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187 pointsshinryuu44 comments

The level of integration of little electronics (like the LiDAR and the OLED screen) into a print is amazing! I am thinking about an electronic light meter that is coupled to the shutter and saves the current reading to an SD card, so that you could later sync the EXIF data to the scans.

Shameless plug: I have made a website that lists a lot of 3D printable film cameras (including the links to the print files). Feel free to have a look if you are thinking about printing your own camera. Some are really cheap and easy to print.

https://printed.analogcamera.space

The biggest issue with these diy builds is that they need the mechanics to be inside the lens - which is not necessarily a bad thing, however it severely limits the lens choice for the system, and introduces additional cost (you basically need to buy a shutter with every lens). The scene has definitely improved over the years, there are a number of very interesting x-pan-like builds which have been made possible by advancements in 3d printing.

I'm looking forward to the day someone figures out how to modify a full frame shutter assembly (plenty and cheap on ebay) to work with medium format film.

You don’t go out and buy a shutter separate. You can just buy a TLR lens that has the leaf shutter already integrated.

For what it's worth virtually every medium format rangefinder uses a leaf shutter integrated in the lens. Many are simply fixed lens cameras (Fujifilm). Even kits with interchangeable lenses like the Bronica RF645 and Mamiya 6/7 integrated leaf shutters in the lenses.

To get a sense for what is required to have a focal-plane shutter on a medium format camera look at the Pentax 67. It's huge and heavy. Even with the mirror locked up there is a significant amount of inertia from the shutter transferred to the user requiring the use of a tripod in many settings.

A full frame focal plane shutter _cannot_ work for medium format sadly. It's be definition too small. I don't think you can use them partially in front of the focal plane, but I could be wrong.

Medium format focal plane shutters do exist, copal made them for Mamiya/Phase One for their AF, AFD, DF, DF+, and XF cameras. Some of which work for medium format film.

I think the most straightforward way to make a DIY focal plane shutter would be a cloth shutter actuated by electric motors. That'd get rid of most of the mechanical complexity and all the needed materials are readily available.

https://japanhobbytool.com/collections/camera-repair-materia...

This is a viewfinder camera with scale focus. Rangefinders have a complex mechanism to measure distance which would be beyond the scope of this project. In early Leica cameras, the rangefinder and view finder were separate mechanisms on the same camera, and were combined in the Leica M series in the 1950s.

Oops! Correction: It is a rangefinder but uses lidar to measure the distance rather than parallax.

I can't quite understand the article. What does the lidar have to do with medium format cameras?

Are you familiar with how you focus a rangefinder camera like a Leica?

You are NOT looking through the lens but a small viewfinder offset from the lens. The viewfinder is usually on the far left. Then there is another window a few inches away that are reflected at various angles by mirrors into the main viewfinder. When you focus the lens that angle of that mirror moves.

This is what it looks like in the camera.

https://licm.org.uk/livingImage/Rangefinder-Camera.html

Here are some internal diagrams showing how the light bounces around in the camera.

https://leicaphilia.com/how-a-rangefinder-works/

https://www.macfilos.com/2024/11/22/fokus-pokus-time-to-reas...

In an SLR or compact camera or iphone the camera sensor or viewfinder is seeing through the lens that is used for taking the picture. So you adjust the lens until you see with your eye that it is in focus and that's it.

With the rangefinder camera the viewfinder is ALWAYS in focus. So you use this secondary image (see the sheep in the first link) and when the 2 images overlap then you know the lens is now in focus.

This camera in the article does not seem to be an optical rangefinder that I described above. When you look through the viewinder everything will be in focus as it is not looking through the lens.

So how do you focus? Instead it uses LiDAR to measure the distance and display that within the viewfinder. It also displays the distance that the lens is currently focused at. Many lenses will have focus scales like this.

https://www.pointsinfocus.com/blog/2010/07/modern-distance-s...

Here is the description from the camera's web site.

"LiDAR" range-finding with high accuracy and distance up to 12m In-viewfinder display with

    Light-meter with aperture range set by selected lens

    Lens focus distance display, and LiDAR rangefinder distance display

    Focus accuracy indicator

So I think you get 2 numbers, the lens focus distance, and the LiDAR distance and it is up to you to adjust the lens until the 2 numbers match. Or move closer or further away using your feet.

If you’re interested but don’t want to make your own, a Fuji GSW690 is a great entry point. I shoot slide film exclusively, and instead of prints, put the 6x9 in an acrylic frame on a sunny windowsill.

I’m also a sucker for 35mm in medium format so you can see photo content around the glorious sprocket holes.

Fuji GM670/GL690 are also nice if you prefer interchangebale lens GM670 in general is reasonably priced compared to Mamiya 7/GF670

> I’m also a sucker for 35mm in medium format so you can see photo content around the glorious sprocket holes.

Have you seen Ted Orland's holga photos? https://www.anseladams.com/products/tree-in-snowstorm-yosemi... and https://www.anseladams.com/products/dawn-at-mono-lake-in-win...

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I personally like 4x6 (a 5x7 is a bit more awkward and 8x10 is right out). One of my favorite things was when Polaroid peel apart film was available - I'd do a transfer to a watercolor post card in the field and put a stamp on it and send it. One of a kind photograph - while you could take another photograph there, you could never make the same print of it since it was a destructive process.

(Also neat being in the field and letting a young child do it from being under the hood to pulling out the film and transferring it to a post card or having the print as it is properly developed)

> put the 6x9 in an acrylic frame on a sunny windowsill.

you likely know this already, but just in case - or for anyone reading this and getting ideas - fading over time due to sun exposure will be a real issue, so make sure to have scans of your favorite images…

I like that it’s sort of temporary

I just bought my first medium format camera recently. I know others have mentioned Lomography's beautiful new 35mm point-and-shoot, and I so wish for a 6x7 rangefinder that's cheap and attainable, easy to calibrate and repair, and portable. This sort of project is exciting to me, but man would I kill for a fully-featured medium-format camera with good support. The Mamiya 6 and 7 are both such incredible cameras, but they're so coveted and so boutique to repair that investing in one feels like not worth the commitment.

For context, the camera I got is a Mamiya RZ67. It's obviously also not straightforward to repair, and it's a beast in size, but I love that it's a fraction of the cost, modular, and readily available.

This is a great product, and without meaning to underestimate the value of a ‘makers’ project I really wish it could be manufactured at scale with a metal body and a mount that could take a wider range of lenses.

Anyone currently interested in this breadth of formats would need to spend maybe 20 thousand dollars to buy cameras like the Hasselblad Xpan, the Plaubel Makina 67, and one of the Fujica 690 bodies.

Putting all this into one body is almost miraculous.

Lomo have recently released a nicely featured 35mm film camera[1]. I wish something like the MRF2 could also be produced in this way.

[1] https://shop.lomography.com/us/lomo-mc-a-35-mm-film-camera-b...

I also am a huge supporter of DIY projects. Also a huge fan of medium-format, film photography.

To that end, if I can help others try medium format film, I want to add that there are plenty of inexpensive used medium-format cameras on eBay. I have purchased perhaps a dozen over the years—none of which even approached US $1000. In case you are not DIY inclined…

(Sadly, Japan has been the best place to order used camera gear but that has become cost prohibitive now for this American.)

Searching just now on eBay for "Yaschica TLR Mint" shows a number of cameras around $300 that are probably excellent (surprise, most are from Japan).

Can't afford a Hasselblad? Try "Bronica Mint" on eBay. Looks like $500 will get you in the game.

Mamiya cameras are built like tanks (and weigh as much). You could do a lot worse: "Mamiya Mint" is going to get you a few great models around $400 or so.

All of these were (are) considered damn fine film cameras.

(Mamiya tend to have interchangeable lenses, as does the Bronica. There are some Wide/Tele adapters for the Yashica, but generally you use them as-is. Most of these cameras are completely manual in operation—the more sought after Yashica though have some light-metering capabilities.)

(The Yashica and some of the Mamiya are TLR, twin-lens reflex—more or less equivalent to a rangefinder? The Bronica and some Mamiya you view through the lens 'TTL'.)

I agree with you, but my point was aimed at people who might think that even a couple of thousand dollars would be too much to spend on a film camera, whereas used Xpans (with an unknown electronic lifespan) are commonly selling for in excess of $7k.

Otherwise I fully agree that buying old film cameras is still both the most practical and most fun way to get into the hobby.

My Xpan is now over 25 years old, and I've been doing stuff like this with it for over a decade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIy2_IpEw8c # electronics are still holding strong... for now. They tend to have more mechanical problems than electrical problems in my experience. But yes, I certainly wouldn't spend anything like what they are going for these days.

Albert (the subject of the original article here) is a former colleague and I recently visited him at home where he showed me his studio and the cameras he'd been creating. All very cool stuff.

I inherited a few Mamiyas with broken shutter release, and unfortunately have not been able to find a shop willing to repair: they specifically said “we won’t touch Mamiyas”

“we won’t touch Mamiyas”

Why? Is the mechanism that complicated? I'm pretty sure medium format SLR like Hasselblad or Rollei SL66 is more... ummm complex.

Very complicated to repair they said /shrug

Thank you for not calling film photography "analog" -- I've been at it for 25 years and I'm also an engineer, and I cringe still everytime I hear/read "analog" photography, while there are plenty of accurate adjective that could be used. Like, as you did, "film" or "chemical" or even "Silver" as the french do.

As for medium format, there are hundreds of Folding cameras that are pretty much as good as the obvious massive SLRs people are so keen on. I own and use a dozen of them, some of them absolutely legendary, like Zeiss Ikontas or Super Isolettes or the russian Iskras and Moskvas.

Quite frankly, having owned a few SLRs myself (I only kept a Bronica S2A with a 50mm lens) I more often than not use the folders because, well, for one thing I can literally have 3 in my bag with 3 different films! The good ones are as good or better than the SLRs, and as long as you don't mind a fixed lens, they do the job very well and often as way more character than the "system"'s ones.

Keep on rolling :-)

> one of the Fujica 690 bodies

I see Fuji GW690 bodies with a 90mm lens on various sites like keh in the $1200 range.

I have a Hasselblad 500 series camera from the 1980's that my father bought at a pawn shop near a military base. In the early 2000's professionals were dumping tons of medium format gear as they switched to digital cameras so he got a wide and telephoto lens. The problem is I never use them. They are big, heavy, klunky, and slow to operate. I've never liked print film. I used to be able to get 2 hour development of E-6 slide film but now I have to mail it off and wait over a week so I don't bother. I look at digital backs but most of them are for studio setups.

My dad used to have that Hasselblad model a loooong time ago. If you are willing to part with it (for less than the "collector" price these are sold nowadays), you could make a nice Christmas gift for him. (I am Rhododender on Reddit)

You absolutely do not need to pay $20k for a medium format rangefinder. You can buy a Plaubel Makina for $2k-$3k right now and that's one of the more expensive options.

Making China imports expensive and cumbersome makes these builds difficult in my opinion. It is most certainly not really $300 if you have good connections, second the admin and tolls can make you spend enormous amount of time and money.

    Electronics (MCU, sensors, displays, cables, LiPo, switches): ~$125 / ~£100
    PCB share (DIY assembly; amortized per build): ~$10 / ~£6 [full 5× PCB batch ~ $35 / £28]
    Hardware/fasteners/mech bits: ~$25 / ~£20
    Optics (lenses + beam splitter): ~$115 / ~£90
    Printed parts material: ~$25 / ~£20
    Rough per-build total: ~$300 / ~£235 (add shipping/taxes and any PCB batch overhead you keep)

That's still very cheap for an interchangeable lens MF rangefinder. A Mamiya 7 will cost you around $2000 just for the body.

There's the Mamiya Press which you can get for cheap but those are very large and heavy.

You are correct, and I agree. My point is that there several things like this that I refrain from completing because they become too cumbersum and expensive to build in small batches.

What a great job he did. It looks very professional, even though the numbers produced must be fairly low. I wonder how the shutter mechanism works, on most medium format cameras that's a work of art and a project in its own right.

It uses mamiya press lenses, the focusing helicoid and shutter are in the lens.

What is the quality like for these lenses? This says the system was discontinued in the 1970s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamiya_Press

I've seen a lot of Mamiya 645 and 67 systems but those were probably from the 1980's and 90's.

I can't speak for the Mamiya Press but the Zeiss Planar 80mm f/2.8 for the Graflex XL is rad.

Good for the time but dated. When your negative is the big it doesn’t matter as much but it’s absolutely not as sharp as more modern constructions. It’s also arguably a step down to use his printed body versus the original Mamiya press in terms of functionality other than reduced weight. Still an impressive design though.

Ahh, I totally missed that detail. That makes the whole thing so much more feasible.

See "Camera Specifics" on [1], for a casual but accurate explanation.

Photography is an amazing hobby, highly recommend diving into it ^^!

1: https://photothinking.com/2021-07-03-mamiya-press-super-23-f...

Really awesome design! It would be wise to replace some of those 3D printed parts with CNC parts, especially for places where a lot of strength is required (eyelets for those Peak Design anchors) or precision is required (lens mount). I myself have 3D printed some parts for my line scan camera too, so I can totally understand.

[1] https://daniel.lawrence.lu/blog/2024-08-31-customizing-my-li...

Very very cool. I've been thinking about doing something like that before, but didn't really have the time or skills. Awesome someone went through with it.

On the topic of LiDAR, there is an interesting thing called UNITR. https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.07732#:~:text=In%20this%20paper%2...

I don’t see it mentioned here yet in recommendations: Pentax 6x7 is an outstanding camera, especially paired with the 105mm f/2.4 lens. Some of my favorite photos ever have come from that pair.

I'll offer a counterpoint. I have a 6x7 and it's heavy and cumbersome. I never use it.

I've watched maybe 10 DIY projects of this nature with 3D printing and this is by far the best image quality for the small size of the body. Incredible work

"When we must, we can."

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