Before you go soiling yourself, this is not a new Pentax model from Ricoh. It is a camera I'm in the process of building. Some of you might have seen the Fotodiox RhinoCam, which is a clever idea for taking a series of overlapping images with a NEX7 across the image circle of a medium format lens (of your choice).
I like the idea, but am not wild about the fact that it only works with a Sony NEX7. It was with these thoughts rolling around in my mind that I suddenly saw my fully toasted Pentax 6x7 body in a new light. I realized that it contained most of the essential bits to create a DIY RhinoCam, which I have dubbed the Pentax HippoCam (she's got a WIDE body, baybee!). The Pentax HippoCam is designed to make use of an even larger image area (7 cm wide, rather than 6) and to use Pentax 6x7 lenses (only) and (hopefully) both Pentax DSLRs or the K-01 on the backside. It also makes use of the Pentax 6x7 prism finder, something the RhinoCam does not offer. Best of all (perhaps) it does not require the purchase of a Sony NEX7. : ) The Pentax K-5 sensor is 16MP and 15.7mm x 23.7mm. Panoramas made with this adapter should be 23.7mm x 70.2mm wide (before any cropping) and approximately 72MP in the final image. For those interested, I started a blog to post my progress: http://pixelsmithysforge.blogspot.com/ For those who wish to start at the beginning, here's the first post: http://pixelsmithysforge.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-few-random-thoughts-about-fotodiox.html -- "Photography is a Bastard left by Science on the Doorstep of Art" - Peter Galassi -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
