Open-source view camera

Calegari View 2

A rigid 6×7 architecture camera you print at home and put together without a single screw. A self-locking worm for the rise, turned from the side through a printed miter pair, a back that turns with a click.

Build guide Download everything
Calegari View 2, three-quarter view

Why

The same camera, without the hardware store.

View 1 works, but building it means buying and sorting screws, inserts and nuts in half a dozen sizes. View 2 asks what a printer can do by itself.

Every fastener of View 1 has a printed answer here: dovetail ways whose wall is a spring instead of a gib and grub screws, a printed worm that holds the front standard wherever you leave it, knobs that snap onto their shafts, plugs that close the ways, a bayonet for the lens boards. What you buy is the focusing helicoid and a sheet of velvet, then the lens and the film back.

It also moves further, 30 mm each way; the film turns from landscape to portrait while the camera stays on the tripod; and it looks like one object: at zero the three plates are a single square block, and the front is nothing but the lens.

Specifications

One block, no screws.

Format
6×7
56 × 69.5 mm, Mamiya RB67 backs on View 1's Graflok seat
Lens
65 mm, Copal 0
on a 70 mm round board, one per lens, printed for its flange distance
Rise and shift
±30 mm, both axes
rise on a self-locking worm, shift on rack and pinion, a click at zero, hard stops
Clean corners
30 mm, or 25 + 25
at infinity; the lens's image circle is the limit, not the camera
Focus
∞ to 0.45 m
M65 helicoid on its own grip, engraved distance scale
Lens change
A 40° turn
three-lug bayonet with a click; the shutter always ends upright
Portrait
The back turns
a quarter turn, a click and a stop; the camera stays on its Arca foot
Size
180 × 222 × 161 mm
with back and lens
Bought
Helicoid and velvet
40 to 70 EUR, plus a spool of ASA and two grams of TPU

Gallery

Every angle.

Front
Front: the lens panel, the barrel and the engraved distance scale
Side
Photographer's right: the rise scale, the three layers
Top
Top: the full-width handle, the shift knob centred in its window and riding with the lens
Rear
Rear: the RB67 back on its rotator, turned to portrait
Rise and shift
30 mm of rise and 30 mm of shift
Exploded view

How it works

Three plates, one light path.

  1. BodyOne print with the full-width handle and the Arca foot. The rise worm is hidden in its right side, turned from the knob on the side face by a printed miter pair; the rotator turns in a round recess at the back.
  2. Y plateSlides up into the body from below, drawn by the worm into its moulded rack. One wall of each pair of grooves is a flexure: it presses the tongue, no play, no gib.
  3. Lens panelSlides in from the side, carries the shift pinion under its knob, and a printed M65 thread for the helicoid.
  4. BarrelHelicoid and lens mount, the same diameter. The board turns 40 degrees into a three-lug bayonet and clicks.
  5. RotatorThe Graflok seat on a round plate: two lugs, three printed springs, a stop peg. Landscape, a quarter turn, portrait.

Build

Eleven steps, two hours.

Four small test plates first: shrinkage, the M65 thread, the bayonet, the worm, the pinion and the dovetails. Then seven plates. The only tools are scissors and a craft knife for the velvet: every part slides, snaps or presses into place. The guide has 22 illustrated sub-steps, each with the new parts pulled out toward where they go and a table of what to do and what to check.

Step 2
Step 2

Rotating back

In at 135 degrees past the lugs, a turn to landscape, the stop peg.

Step 5
Step 5

Worm and Y plate

The worm up from below, then the plate until its rack meets the worm; the knob draws it home.

Step 7
Step 7

Lens panel

In from the side, two plugs, the shift knob on top.

Step 9
Step 9

The lens

On its board, into the bayonet: a turn and a click.

Checked before it is printed

Measured, not guessed.

The whole camera is a parametric model, and every change runs through the same checks: every pair of parts at eleven positions of the movements and the back, the mechanisms one by one, the velvet seal between the plates, and a ray trace from the lens to the corners of the film through every part, at infinity and focused close, landscape and portrait.

0

interferences, at zero, at the ends of the travel, in landscape and portrait

6.1 mm

narrowest velvet seal between the sliding plates, at any position

7.1°

lead of the rise worm, against a 17° friction angle: the front standard cannot fall

25+25

mm of rise and shift together with clean corners at infinity; 30 on one axis

What a computer cannot prove, a test print can: the thread, the bayonet, the drive and the dovetails come first, on small plates, before the body. The test prints guide says what to look for and which number to change.

Files

Everything you need.

Bambu plates3MF plates for a P1S, one material and layer height per plate, parts already oriented.print/plates → Shopping listA helicoid and a sheet of velvet, with links. Then the lens and the back.docs/bom.md → Test printsFour small plates that prove the thread, the bayonet, the worm, the pinion and the dovetails on your printer.docs/test-prints.md → Printing guideSettings, orientations, painting the dots.docs/printing.md → AssemblyEleven steps in 22 illustrated sub-steps, velvet templates 1:1.docs/assembly.md → CalibrationLight test, infinity, boards for other lenses, the feel of the movements.docs/calibration.md → Using the cameraFrom the bag to the negative, and the lens change.docs/using.md → STEP filesEvery printed part for Fusion or FreeCAD.print/step → Parametric modelPython and build123d: change a number, rebuild the camera.cad →