Wanderlust Cameras (aka Justin Lundquist and Ben Syverson–both are awesome photographers with some pretty tight 3D design and fabrication chops, and Lundquist is also my brother-in-law) are just wrapping up the Kickstarter campaign for their newest project: The Travelwide 4×5 Large-formate Point-and-Shoot.
“Large-format” cameras take pictures using *negatives* that are 4-by-5 *inches* or larger–which is pretty frickin’ huge, when you think about a traditional 35mm image (which is a bit bigger than a postage stamp) or the CCD sensors in a digital camera (which tend to be less than .5-inch square). A larger negative (or sensor) means higher image resolution and finer color gradation. Large-format is the way much professional photography is done, and is big with hobbyists–but it’s expensive (used large-format rigs start at a several hundred dollars and quickly climb into the thousands) and heavy (these are big hunks of steel).
Lundquist and Syverson have designed a super-light, precise, basically indestructible large-format camera body that accepts existing lenses (which can be bought used for pennies on the dollar). Since Lundquist and Syverson made their name producing the best pinhole “lens” available for Micro 4/3 mirrorless digital cameras (you can buy one here, or learn more about it from this article I wrote for issue 9 of The Magazine), they’ve also included a removable pinhole aperture for their Travelwide. Here’s a sample pinhole pic taken using that setup:
And here’s a little more background on their design and development process for this camera.
I’m not sure if the price will pop up once the Kickstarter campaign is through, but for the next 10 days you can lock in a $100 pre-order for this camera –which gets you what is, without a doubt, the most precise large-format pinhole camera on the market today, with the added bonus that you can easily swap in a pro lens, or mount after-market range-finders, flashes, tripods, and other accessories on the thing. Final bonus: The thing is 100% Made in the USA.
Light enough to drag around backcountry Brazil, tight enough to use for a pro-shoot, cheap enough to experiment out in the grit and the rain without constantly worrying that you’re gonna wreck the damn thing.
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