[HN Gopher] Photographer built a medium-format rangefinder
___________________________________________________________________
Photographer built a medium-format rangefinder
Author : shinryuu
Score : 179 points
Date : 2025-12-06 22:29 UTC (7 days ago)
(HTM) web link (petapixel.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (petapixel.com)
| barrenko wrote:
| "When we must, we can."
| pastage wrote:
| 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 / ~PS100 PCB share (DIY assembly; amortized per
| build): ~$10 / ~PS6 [full 5x PCB batch ~ $35 / PS28]
| Hardware/fasteners/mech bits: ~$25 / ~PS20 Optics (lenses
| + beam splitter): ~$115 / ~PS90 Printed parts material:
| ~$25 / ~PS20 Rough per-build total: ~$300 / ~PS235 (add
| shipping/taxes and any PCB batch overhead you keep)
| ginko wrote:
| 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.
| pastage wrote:
| 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.
| ginko wrote:
| 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.
| phony-account wrote:
| 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...
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| 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'.)
| phony-account wrote:
| 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.
| leejo wrote:
| 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.
| derwiki wrote:
| 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"
| anta40 wrote:
| "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.
| derwiki wrote:
| Very complicated to repair they said /shrug
| buserror wrote:
| 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 :-)
| lizknope wrote:
| > 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.
| Arodex wrote:
| 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)
| frompdx wrote:
| 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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| 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.
| iNerdier wrote:
| It uses mamiya press lenses, the focusing helicoid and shutter
| are in the lens.
| lizknope wrote:
| 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.
| staticautomatic wrote:
| I can't speak for the Mamiya Press but the Zeiss Planar
| 80mm f/2.8 for the Graflex XL is rad.
| iNerdier wrote:
| 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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Ahh, I totally missed that detail. That makes the whole thing
| so much more feasible.
| moralestapia wrote:
| 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...
| derwiki wrote:
| 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.
| anta40 wrote:
| Fuji GM670/GL690 are also nice if you prefer interchangebale
| lens GM670 in general is reasonably priced compared to Mamiya
| 7/GF670
| shagie wrote:
| > 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...
|
| ---
|
| 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)
| gyomu wrote:
| > 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...
| derwiki wrote:
| I like that it's sort of temporary
| ulnarkressty wrote:
| 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.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| You don't go out and buy a shutter separate. You can just buy a
| TLR lens that has the leaf shutter already integrated.
| frompdx wrote:
| 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.
| buildbot wrote:
| 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.
| ginko wrote:
| 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...
| galago wrote:
| 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.
| galago wrote:
| Oops! Correction: It _is_ a rangefinder but uses lidar to
| measure the distance rather than parallax.
| geon wrote:
| I can't quite understand the article. What does the lidar
| have to do with medium format cameras?
| lizknope wrote:
| 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.
| bichiliad wrote:
| 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.
| kaiuhl wrote:
| 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.
| frompdx wrote:
| I'll offer a counterpoint. I have a 6x7 and it's heavy and
| cumbersome. I never use it.
| sebastianlay wrote:
| 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
| dllu wrote:
| 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...
| fudged71 wrote:
| 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
| nashashmi wrote:
| On the topic of LiDAR, there is an interesting thing called
| UNITR.
| https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.07732#:~:text=In%20this%20paper%2...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-12-14 20:02 UTC)