I wrote a while ago about the big rear projection system I designed back
in the early '70s. We also built a special camera to make the 4x5"
slides for it. We bought a bed from a manufacturer of process cameras
like you describe. The bed was crucial for it's rigidity and the high
precision rails along the top. It is what keeps everything in alignment.
We hung one end from the ceiling (reinforced concrete) and built a frame
to hold up the other end and hold the biggest vacuum copy board we could
find (6X9' ?). we took the head of a Durst commercial enlarger, adapted
it into a camera head and built a motorized frame to hang it from the
overhead 'bed'. We later extended the copyboard with plywood wings to
handle bigger originals. Building this into the third floor of an old
warehouse building ws interesting. We had a crane to lift the bed and
swing it through the opening where we temporarily removed a window.
Although we used it as a camera, it would have worked perfectly as a
giant enlarger. We never needed prints that big and just used an Omega
4x5 enalrger in the darkroom next to the camera room. It worked great
for years, but the time and tides of business and technology passed it
by. All the equipment is long gone now and work is almost complete to
convert the 1920s building to it's new life as live-work lofts.
I'll bet I had the biggest camera of anyone on the list!? Not biggest
format, but about 15x24 feet in size!
Moose
Bill Pearce wrote:
<snip>
On page 78, there is an article about his remarkable darkroom, where he
produces these wall-sized prints. It shows Big Bertha, a "copy camera" that
has been turned into a horizontal enlarger. I'm sure that there are several
other listees as well as myself that recognize this as what the graphic arts
world calls a process camera. <big snip>
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