Recently, I had the opportunity to take some time off at the end of 2024 and decided to jump into a project I've been putting off for forever. I've been meaning to dive into optics more, as well as the world of mechanical film cameras and analog photography. While I have been shooting film for years, now, building my own camera was something I had yet to do. This ended up being, by far, my most rigorous and complex mechanical design effort, to date.

Also, no, there is not a typo in the name of the camera, or the title of this article!

Background

I can't rightly recall when I first fell infatuated with panoramic images. It might have been in passing a sprawling wall print along a hallway in an airport terminal, or possibly upon seeing some ancient east-Asian panoramic wall scroll. It might just be the natural result and tendency of the photographer to seek out spanning vistas and impressive horizons. Certainly, they seem to take up more wall space. Whatever the case, I have been incorporating panoramas into my photography for quite some time and have long sought after a dedicated panorama camera. It was only a matter of time before I either caved and bought one or made one myself.

Dreams and Disappointment

One of the first 'nice' cameras I ever got was a Sony CyberShot digicam which actually supported the shooting and stitching of panoramas in-camera by simply panning the camera around on-location. I always found this a neat tool, though I have never found opportunity to get proper artistic use out of such a feature; these types of things are usually quite gimmicky and often bare fruit to heavy artifacting and suffer in quality as a result. At least, this has been my experience, leaving much to be desired after the initial novelty wears off.

Years later, I learned about panoramic film cameras — those legendary beasts that expose a wider section of the roll than what is considered 'standard' for film cameras. In fact, the first medium format (120 film) camera I ever purchased was the Holga 120 Pan. Named a 'panoramic miracle' by Lomography Magazine, I thought it would be the camera for me. I have been one to appreciate lo-fi photography in the past and thought I ought to try it out, especially given the price point. While fun and simple to shoot with, I have yet to coax satisfying images out of mine. There is a great chance that I have not tried hard enough to like the Holga 120 Pan, but my experiences with it thus far have left me wondering about other options.

The best panoramas I have shot, I created by stitching together multiple still frames in post. While I consider this a very essential technique and will absolutely continue to keep it in my digital arsenal, it becomes expensive and somewhat contrived when applied to film. Since heavy post-processing, including geometric distortion, is needed for such 'stitched panoramas' shooting them on film defeats part of the point of film, in my opinion. (I like not to have to manipulate my film photos too heavily and valuable film is lost in the overlapping areas of the exposures.) It also means everyone's favorite: spending more time and effort editing and less shooting pictures.

I really wanted my own native panoramic film camera, but most of the best options available are rare and exotic antiques like the Hasselblad XPan, which far exceed my price point. As such, it is unlikely I will find what I am looking for on the used market.

Initially, I saw projects like Panomicron's Oxygen panoramic camera that heavily leveraged 3D-printed parts and thought I might just print someone else's design. Looking at similar projects, I realized that I would have to modify the designs to suit my particular needs, anyways, so I figured,

"Why not just design one from scratch, myself?"

The Decision to DIY

While this was technically not my first attempt at making a camera, I don't really consider the first project seriously, since it didn't actually work all too well. My first attempt consisted of a cardboard box, an antique medium format lens, and cyanotype paper for exposing cyanonegatives. This early attempt and subsequent failure were somewhat discouraging to me and factored into why I ended up putting a more serious attempt off for so long. I was not convinced I could do it.

For context: a while back, I acquired an antique medium format lens through the generosity of an academic that believed in me. This individual, despite never teaching me in an official capacity, probably had a greater positive impact on my university experience than any professor that lectured me. As such, it became a goal of mine to eventually design and create a camera body to accompany the wonderful little lens. When I finally got around to delving into my first full DIY camera design project, it only seemed natural to choose to design around this particular lens and aim for a panorama camera. It was an obvious 2-birds-1-stone design decision.

While several other designs on the internet are very impressive, I had some notions about what I particularly wanted out of a DIY camera project. For one thing, Panomicron's aforementioned project relied on Selective Layered Sintering (SLS) printing while I wanted to be able to completely manufacture my camera at home on my own Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) 3D printer. The two different manufacturing techniques require different design considerations; I like to 'design for manufacture' (a mantra I have adopted from a clever coworker and mentor) a portion of which means designing as many parts as possible to print without supports on FFF tech. More than anything, I wanted to do this for the learning experience so I could call the design my own, at least in part.

Key Features of the Lens

The Compur-Rapid Brillant Voigtländer Skopar 7.5cm f/3.5 is an old medium format lens from the days of 120 film cameras. (Notice the spelling on the lens is 'BRILLANT' without a second 'I' to spell 'BRILLIANT' making the spelling seem like a typo.) The name of the lens is a mouthful, so I'll refer to it as the Compur-Skopar from now on. I have seen it mounted on both Bellows cameras and twin-lens reflex cameras, such as in the image above. It is quite special and distinctly suited to my particular project because all of the mechanisms needed to take an exposure are all miraculously jammed into the body of the lens itself. It features a helical focuser, a variable aperture from f/3.5 to f/22 and an internal leaf shutter with exposure settings of T (timer), B (bulb), and timed exposures from 1/1s to 1/500s. I was thus able to concentrate all my design efforts on film and light management without worrying about more mechanically complex tasks like designing and manufacturing exposure timing mechanisms, and shutters. As a first camera project, I wanted to keep things simple to increase the likelihood of success.

The Geometry of Panoramic Film

Touted as probably the best panoramic film camera ever created, the Hasselblad XPan took 65×24mm photographs on 135 film (standard 35mm film); much wider than the usual 36×24mm frames (3:2 aspect ratio) shot by nearly every other 35mm film camera, although not quite twice as wide. This results in a unique 65:24 aspect ratio panorama. I opted to design my camera to shoot 66×24mm frames for a 11:4 aspect ratio. Somewhat arbitrary, but I like multiples of eleven, and I had to 1-up Hasselblad.

These frame dimensions would mean that the 75mm lens I was designing the camera around would be in the 'normal' range. (Much like a 50mm lens is considered 'normal' on a standard 35mm camera.) The XPan and Fujifilm TX-series cameras offered wider-angle optic offerings, but this would be one limitation of my design decisions. Given the flexible nature of designing everything myself, I could theoretically redesign the lens mount of this camera in the future for use with lenses other than the Compur-Skopar if the opportunity arises.

Determining Dimensions

I have said it before, and I'll say it again: The most critical dimension in an optical system is the focal length of the lens and, in the case of a packaged lens assembly, the flange focal distance (FFD). Just because the lens states on the side that it has a 75mm focal length does not mean the FFD is 75mm. For a camera ecosystem to work, the FFD for all lenses in a standardized mount like Nikon Z or Sony E is the same. Because the Compur Lens was an antique, I could not find any readily available information on its FFD so I had to determine it experimentally.

Flange Focal Distance

I ended up modeling a simple threaded mount with a simple light box drafted extrusion off the back. I made a rough estimate of 74mm at first, thinking that starting just short of the labeled focal length would make sense. I checked the measurement by mounting the lens, setting the diaphragm wide-open, focusing to infinity, holding the assembly up to a ground glass and pointing it out a window. In theory, if I got everything right, distant objects would be in focus while close objects would be blurry. On the first try, this was not the case.

Even close objects were out of focus, indicating that I had overshot the lens's FFD. If I had undershot it, I would at least be able to focus on things closer than infinity. For my next iteration, I intentionally undershot the FFD (at 60mm) so I could add spacers between the ground glass and the light box until objects at infinity came into focus. I then measured the thickness of the spacers to offset the FFD and added those to 60mm to get the final FFD.

As a matter of fact, the FFD I derived using this method was 69mm, indicating to me that the original optical engineers behind this product might have had a "sense of humor," as they say. The following table details important dimensions of the optical system for the camera:

135 Film Canister

I approached this project fully expecting to create quite a complex CAD assembly in order to make sure all of the elements would come together correctly to form a single cohesive, functional object. To this end, I also modeled a 135-format film canister to fit into my assembly so I could make sure all the relative dimensions made sense. Since the 135 canister is standardized, it made sense just to have a model with all the dimensions that mattered to me. The model can be found here.

Top-Level Design Overview

I might do a more detailed design review in the future, along with an assembly guide, if enough people are interested in this project and want to make one for themselves. For now, I won't bore you with the fine-grained details.

Tenets of Design

As this was my first real film camera design project I approached the design process with several core tenets:

• Design for Manufacture - always consider the shortcomings of FFF printers in every model feature.
  • Design around avoiding unnecessary support structures (yucky).
  • Be mindful of minimum achievable resolutions and feature thicknesses (using a 0.4mm nozzle for everything).
  • Understand how overhangs will print (avoid angles <40° with 60° ideal).
  • Know the tolerance limits of the technology (0.1mm rule).
• Fear the Light - always incorporate light-trapping geometry along every seam that borders compartments to contain photographic film (prevent light leaks).
• Screws for Durability - go the extra step to use screws and threaded inserts when a durable and reliable connection is desirable.
• Accent Colors - it's also gotta look wicked, so any piece that doesn't need to be black for light-tightness purposes should be considered color-customizable.

While adhering to these general guidelines was tough (and sometimes fun) doing so helped me retain a clear focus on the outcomes I wanted to achieve with the project. It inevitably reduced the number of design revision decisions I needed to make before I got to a working prototype, since spending more time in design space allowed me to identify many flaws before they made it into fabrication space and wasted materials. I still had my fair share of test models, but I have gotten better at reducing the number of intermediate prototypes required to reach proof-of-concept.

Key Features

Though I will likely continue to improve the design, my current iteration is highly printable via FFF and has many design features. There are 23 printed components + a few COTS parts. Features include:

• Interchangeable lens mount for easily adapting other lenses with different FFDs.
• Sprocket-driven frame alignment indicator.
• Interchangeable hand grip with integrated cable shutter release.
• Cold shoe with interchangeable viewfinder.
• Advance-into-canister film carriage design.
• Light meter mounting holes.
• Strap lugs.
• Copious light-trapping features.

I may do a more detail-oriented design review at some point when I feel the project is more finalized. Let me know if this would interest you!

Camera Design Gallery

At the time of writing, the design is on version 1.2:

First Results

For some reason or another, even though I am so meticulous with this kind of thing, I am often astounded when something I make actually works the way I intended it to, especially on the first try. This project is one of those small miracles, for me. Thus, after the fashion of the device and the name of the lens, I dub this design the "Brillant PanoCam!"

Though I really only got one 'good' frame off the initial roll I shot using the Brillant PanoCam V0.1, the proof of concept was thrilling. I had been impatient and went out to shoot a test roll – some expired Kodak Gold 200 I had laying around – before designing a viewfinder for framing shots, so the main reason most of the other frames were 'poor' was due to bad composition. I had some missed focus and some accidental double-exposures, but I chalk that up to user error and my own inexperience with the zone focusing technique and the extra accompanying workflow more than the camera's design. I can fix my technique, so the results should improve. I was most surprised that the FFD was accurate enough to render sharp images and that there were no light leaks. My light-trapping paranoia really paid off.

For the next roll, I loaded a brand-new roll of Kodak Tri-X 400 for some faster shutter speeds. I also made the proper decision to design and affix a basic viewfinder; no optics, just a funnel with the correct angle and aspect ratio to give a good approximation of the camera's supposed FOV. I designed it to slip into the cold shoe, so I will be able to easily exchange different composition-framing tools as I see fit.

I also ended up buying an L.D Meter by CHI, an accessory tool that can be affixed to any camera's hot/cold shoe to add both a light meter and a laser range finder. I ended up detaching the shoe-mount and designing the top plate of the camera to screw directly onto the L.D Meter for a secure and cohesive piece of kit. I simply added corresponding mounting holes to my camera model so that I could attach the device more securely than just using the cold shoe. I don't plan on removing the accessory from the camera, often.

Next Steps

A big motivator for me on this project was the objective of creating a camera design I could iterate on and improve while learning more about optical systems. I hope to use this intermediate-level project as a launch-pad into more complex camera designs in the future. Either a nice custom optical eye-level or waist-level viewfinder sounds like the logical next step, to me. For now, I think I will focus more on learning to use the Brillant PanoCam I've created, since it's all about the photography at the end of the day.

If you are interested in this project, yourself, feel free to reach out, as I'm always interested in talking DIY and cameras.

Gallery

As, always, one of my articles feels incomplete without the gallery at the end.

First Roll

Second Roll

Third Roll

Acknowledgements

This project was a grand undertaking, and I had input and assistance from many smart and talented people to make it happen. In particular, I wanted to recognize some small local business owners that I really appreciate:

• Vicki of Albuquerque Photo Tech, who helped me bring an antique optical system back into working order. She has the most wonderful camera repair business and second-hand camera shop.
• Matt of Picture Perfect Photo Lab, who claims he didn't rush-order my negatives even though the scans arrived a week early during peak season. He and his crew are an invaluable asset to the local film scene in NM and are always super helpful.

Thanks for the help, and thanks for reading,
~Joseph