First Shoot

Today was my first shoot with my new 4"x5" view camera! I was so excited. Building this camera was my big project in July/August (I got all the pieces/instructions from Bender Photographic). By mid-August, I was practically done, but I still had a few last things to do. And then school happened. And then I realized I needed some replacement parts. As such, it probably took me two months to actually do these "last few things."

It's still not done, but at least I can use it. I need to redo the piece that attaches to the tripod. In the meantime, I'm using a 2" C-Clamp to hold that piece together until I can get the new piece made. You can actually see the clamp in this photo (it's red).

I can't wait until I develop my film. I love 4"x5" film...but it's SO easy to screw it up... (This is when I start to miss the immediate gratification of digital cameras).


While I waited for my view camera to complete a 17-minute exposure, I switched over to my digital camera to try out some more time lapse cloud experiments. After a few quick tests, I actually sat and pushed the shutter button every ten seconds for an hour. Ridiculous. It looks really cool, but there's no way I'm doing that again...

When I got home, I started researching how I could automate the process. From what I've read, it sounds like I should be able to do this by plugging my Canon directly into my laptop and using the software they provided. I will have to experiment with this. Has anyone here done any work with time lapse? Any advice/ideas/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


In other news, this is my tenth entry, so I have a "camera" icon now!