07/27/2026
After several years of work on designing camera backs and bodies, I told myself that I was going to take a break from building cameras and focus more on taking photos for a while.
But, me being me, I still had a project in mind. I happen to have a 210mm large format lens, and 210mm happens to match the 250mm framelines of a Mamiya Press camera when considering the crop factor from 6x9 to Instax Mini film. So...I decided I'd try to build my own 210mm lens for portraits.
I'm not bold enough to design and build a whole focusing system right out of the gate, so I opted for a fixed-focus lens that turned into a Polaroid BigShot-like camera. If it works, I plan to call it after the inspiration and the film format.
For those that aren't familiar with the iconic Polaroid BigShot, feel free to read up here: https://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Polaroid_Big_Shot
My initial build with the 210mm lens worked quite nicely: contrast was low because I hasn't blackened the inside of the lens for my test shots, and composition & exposure were both...weird. It worked, but not at all how I expected it to.
I also have a 203mm Kodak Ektar lens, and I suspect it will make a better candidate for this conversion: it's smaller, lighter, and has a better layout of controls.
But when I was testing this build against a ground glass, I made a heartbreaking discovery: the film plane of my press builds is off. Not by a lot, just enough to allow enough room for the rangefinder adjustment to yield in-focus images, but at the wrong distance. I suspect that this explains a lot of lingering issues I'd experienced previously, plus the weirdness I found with the 210mm build. I was in focus, but not at the right range, and when you're focused close with a long lens that matters a lot.
I'm putting this project on hold for now. I'm keeping to my promise and not doing camera body work for a while...even though it's going to kill me to know there's an error I need to fix.
Photos 1-3 are test shots, photo 4 is a Polaroid BigShot, and photo 5 is one of my press builds with Mini BigShot fit.
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