Category: Box Camera

Worked this week on the film holder and focus mechanism. I found this surprisingly hard to build and tested multiple designs before settling on this one.

The biggest challenge was getting the focus/film holder to slide smoothly and evenly on the rails. Next up – the rear door, arm hole and lid.

As a project this year, I am attempting to make a Kamra-E-Faoree, also known as the Afghan box camera. There is a lot of information and great example of images taken with this type of camera in Lukas Birk’s book “Box Camera Now“

Here is what I have constructed so far:

I have constructed the body, the focusing screen/film holder and the internal supports for film holder and focus rod. I will use a 135mm f4.7 Graphlex Optar lens on the camera. I mounted the lens and it projects a nice image on the ground glass that I made out of an acrylic sheet. I have made it so the film holder can be rotated so both horizontal and vertical pictures can be taken.

Next I will be making the rear door, the arm hole and the lid.

Here are some videos that show the camera in operation and the construction steps