Gandhi once said, "Be the change that you want to see in the world." Folding 4X5 cameras are too expensive. And the really cheap ones can not really do what I need them to do for my work. I knew I could do better. In the Summer of 2008 I set out to build a 4X5 camera body that would accept standard lenses and film holders and perform as well as a commercially available model for significantly less money. I wanted the front standard to be able to rise and fall, swing, and tilt. The rear standard needed to do the same with the exception of swing.
Lets start with the design phase. I first had to determine my building material. It needed to be both rigid and light and thin enough for our laser to be able to cut it cleanly. 1/4" hardwood seemed to be the best candidate but I did flirt with the idea of using acrylic. I wanted to jazz the camera up so I went with a combination of maple and cherry wood. I knew I would be making a few mistakes along the way so as I designed each of the camera's components, I would make prototypes out of scraps that we had lying around. The metal parts, the bellows and the ground-glass and frame had to be purchased or salvaged.
The camera was designed in sections in Adobe Illustrator in the AMS template. I split the design into front standard, rear standard, bottom standard (for tripod mount), side brackets, and plastic parts. Initial design ideas included a camera that could fold into itself and other very precise movements that I found would be impossible without the ability to fabricate my own metal parts in house. I ultimately decided to use a swappable bracket system that controlled all of the camera movements and facilitated partial folding. The design is reliant on friction based movements. The standards were cut from sheets of cherry wood and the brackets were made from maple.
