Calegari View 1

A view camera I could never justify buying.

I have wanted a view camera for years. The rigid kind, compact, built for architecture: you put it on the tripod, raise the lens a couple of centimetres and the verticals stay vertical, straight on the negative, with nothing to fix afterwards.

The problem is the price. A new Arca-Swiss or Silvestri costs thousands before you add a lens, and the used market is not much kinder. So I designed my own, around what I already had: a Bambu Lab P1S, the Mamiya RB67 backs you can find everywhere for little money, and a used large-format wide angle.

Everything is here: the print files, the parametric model they come from, the shopping list with links and step-by-step instructions. Without back and lens, the parts cost about 350 euro, much of it in packs of screws and inserts that will outlast the camera.

Small, square, serious.

Format

6×7

56 × 69.5 mm; the gate also clears 6×8

Back

Mamiya RB67

Pro, Pro-S, Pro-SD; Graflok-type interface and ground glass; turns for portrait, with a click

Lens

65 mm, Copal 0

on a Linhof Technika 99 × 96 board

Rise and shift

±25 mm, both axes

printed dovetail ways with gibs, lead screws, 1 mm per turn, hard stops, zero clicks

Focus

∞ to 0.47 m

M65 helicoid on a metal flange, hidden infinity stop

Tripod

Arca-Swiss

one plate under the body; for portrait the back turns, not the camera

Light seal

≥ 13 mm

of velvet at every shift position

Size

185 × 247 × 161 mm

with back, lens, handle and knobs

Weight

≈ 1.2 kg

without back and lens; about 2.1 kg ready to shoot

Every angle.

Side, photographer's right: rise scale and shift knob

Top: focus ring, depth-of-field dots, shift scale

Rear: RB67 back on the rotating seat, red Graflok blade

Rise and shift — 25 mm of rise, 12 mm of shift

Portrait: the back turned a quarter, the camera still upright

Section — Cutaway: the light path through four sliding slabs

Flat slabs, one light path.

Rotating backThe back's seat, a fixed bottom rail that hooks it and releases the Pro-S interlock, and a red blade that locks it. It turns a quarter turn for portrait, on velvet, behind a labyrinth, with a click at both ends.

Body170 mm square: stepped gate, two dovetail rails, rise screw, the top handle and an Arca plate underneath.

Y plateSlides in from the top like a drawer, rises and falls between the rails, and carries the horizontal rails and the shift screw.

Lens panelShifts left and right, holds a metal M65 flange for the helicoid.

Focus and lensHelicoid, focus ring with a hidden infinity stop, a printed adapter that is also the calibration part, and a Technika board holder with a spring latch.

Nine steps, one day.

Four hours of test prints first: the shrinkage of your ASA, the back interface, slices of the dovetail ways and the M65 thread. Then seven plates of black ASA and one of red. The guides assume you have never held a view camera: every step is split into short sub-steps, each picture shows only the new parts pulled out toward where they go, and a table says what goes where. The calibration guide is illustrated the same way. Every screw, insert and nut is listed with a link in the shopping list.

Step 1

Body

Heat-set inserts on four faces, the rise detent, two bushings.

Step 2

Rotating back

Red blade and wheel on the rotator, then the rotator, a velvet ring and the rear frame; a click and a stop from the front.

Step 3

Arca plate, handle, level

One aluminium plate underneath, the top handle, a bull's-eye level.

Step 4

Vertical ways

Two printed dovetail rails and the body velvet.

Step 5

Front standard

On the bench: Y plate, lens panel, horizontal ways, gib, shift screw and knob.

Step 6

Into the body

It slides in from the top; rise nut, rise screw and knob.

Step 7

Helicoid and focus ring

Set at calibration, with the red infinity dot on the index.

Step 8

Board holder and lens

Adapter ring, two felt rings, spring latch, Technika board. Lenses change in ten seconds.

Step 9

Film back

Hook under the rail, swing in, slide the blade up, tighten.

Measured, not guessed.

The whole camera is a parametric model, and every change to it runs through the same checks: moving parts at every shift position, every screw against the bottom of its hole, the velvet seal between the plates, a ray trace from the lens to the corners of the film, the tripod clamp, the back in both orientations, and how each part prints. Three rounds of independent review came before the first print.

interferences among 145 parts, at home and at the four shift extremes, locks open and closed, back in landscape and portrait

13 mm

narrowest velvet seal between sliding plates, at any shift

solid per printed part: no floating islands in any file

25 mm

of rise or shift with clean corners at f/8 and f/22, at infinity, in both orientations; 19 + 19 combined

What a computer cannot prove, a test print can: the back interface, the dovetail fit and the M65 thread come first, on small plates, before the body. The calibration guide says what to measure and how.