I am considering a metal shop class at TechShop here in the San Francisco Bay area. I am particularly interested in making mounts for my P45+ and experimental camera designs. I remember seeing a post a while back by someone in Scandinavia who's friend was milling him parts related to a MFDB. Does anyone know of any postings or have any experience making cameras?
Thanks,
Hi,
With experience from a custom made stitching adapter for my Aptus 65 to 4x5, there are essentially two options;
1) Stitching adapter on 4x5, the critical is that the error tolerance of sensor and groundglass plane versus sliding is small. Mine is approx. 0.07mm which is borderline meaning it works ok with my 72mm XL and 150mm, but not equal well with my 58mm. This is where the difficulty is in making stitching adapters for 4x5... - the tight tolerances! Probably approaching 0.02mm tolerance would be best. The camera itself does not need adhere to 0.02mm. I can focus on my Shen Hao wooden camera! While a complete other issue is that it is simply more convenient to use film in Quickloads in it ~~~
2) Camera body with helical focus. This is more simple (and I have thoughts on one), because there is not need to control swings and tilts, obvious simple if one accept no shift or rise/fall as well. Schneider has recommended me 0.02mm as critical tolerance for adjusted flange focal distance at infinity. Thus... assuming the camera body itself has been fabricated to 'reasonable' tolerances and that the digital back fits snug, it seems all one would need is ensure perfect alignment of lens mount compared to digital back, and make adjustment to the infinity focus of the helical focus...
The last sounds pretty simple to me, since camera body should not need 0.02mm tolerances, but well of material with not excessive expansion. Lens do need to be rather perfect aligned with shims though.
The question I must ask is, how can a company such as Alpa ensure of 0.02mm tolerance with all multiple parts that are connected between lens and back??? Seems dirt easily can account for 0.02mm...
Anders