Camera and lens building experiments

I have been tinkering with building cameras and lenses in one form or another for almost as long as I have been taking photos. It all started with a little curiosity about how the cameras I was using actually even worked. Soon I was making pinholes at different "focal lengths" and attaching them to the front of my camera.

I soon found my little experiments spiraling out of control, and I graduated to taking apart old camera lenses (and anything else with any optical components for that matter) and mixing them around into my very own franken-lenses. No sooner had I done this would I start making my own cameras & camera obscuras too. 

This work and more was covered in my interview with The Phoblographer, you can read their article here.

Self Portrait: Taken on an early draft of my most recent Large Format digital Camera Obscura. 118mm f/2.0 (Full frame equivalent 33mm f/0.56)

As you can see, the the lenses I built for this are anything but sharp, but somehow I find them somewhat visually appealing regardless.

My Dad, completely engulfed in Bokeh - The first photo I took on my then newly completed Large format camera.