Bare Bones Budget

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Since the cost of getting one's feet wet in LF is often an issue, I thought I would throw this out as one approach: http://members.aol.com/onelucent/LF/shoe.html.

I'm sure others will have similar suggestions or more finely honed examples.

Than

-- David Stein (DFStein@aol.com), April 17, 2000

Answers

Ah, the old duct tape camera!

-- Charlie Strack (charlie_strack@sti.com), April 17, 2000.

That's a really cool looking camera ;-)

I dunno, but I think its is quite possible to get a good deal every now and then on a starter 4x5. E.g., I just picked up a mintish B&J Watson Press camera (a highly underrated press camera) with 6 film holders, a 135mm lens, filters, teleconverter, storage case for the princely sum of $131. The 6 holders alone should be worth $40 - $50, so the camera and lens (a 135mm Optar) is way under $100.

I have also seen pretty bare 'parts' Crown Graphics (usually no GG and lensboard nor lens) going for about $60 which, if you're willing to do some work on them, would make a beautiful first 4x5 camera. Jon Grepstad has an example of a beautifully done up junker (bought for $29 on Ebay):

http://home.sol.no/~gjon/crown99.htm

Jon's probably a first class carpenter/woodworker himself of course.

James Vail has another of the same breed here:

http://www.srv.net/~vail/woody.htm

which he spent $75 in total.

-- K H Tan (kahheng@pacific.net.sg), April 18, 2000.


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