iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I think they would have given me a hard time if I had the camera I’d had at the previous concert, a Pentax mz-m. With a grip! 😅😅

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I brought a Leica into a concert a couple weeks ago. Security asked if there was a camera in the bag and had me pull it out: “Oh, point and shoots are fine; if it was a pro camera you’d have to leave it outside.” Competing feelings of smugness and poseur-ness.

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

It’s a cool idea and a pretty neat camera. But also truly shitty. At least the copy I have. Hardly anything works right. And I don’t think it’s had a particularly rough life, I think it was built and used just once by a community college STEM club (based on the few photos left on it). 😅😅

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

3d metadata, Philadelphia 2026 “Bigshot” digital camera, built in stereo lens Found this camera for $2 at GW. Battery was dead but I had a spare 1s battery laying around that I could solder in. Stereo lens has a nonexistent base, but is still pretty awesome. #ShittyCameraChallenge #StereoPair

Mirror selfie of a man with a plastic turreted camera. The stereo pair works in free viewing though the depth is not too pronounced because of the short stereo baseline.

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I had a ton of fun shooting instant box camera portraits at our local art fair last year but it was so much work. I missed the signup this year (the event was last weekend) and I wasn’t too bummed. Maybe I’ll try again next year. 😄

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

❤️❤️❤️ Awesome!!

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Epitrochoidal goodness in a tiny package. More restorations from my dad’s collection. #ModelAviation #Wankel #WillItStart

A small r/c motor held in my hand. This is the Groupner/Os .30 rotary engine!

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Papa, Philadelphia 2026 Star Camera Co Sliding Box Camera, Darlot 6.5” Petzval, Expired Ilford paper negative. Taken by daughter. Less convinced it’s back focusing. Maybe just the limitation of lens sweet spot and coverage. Will have to try stopped down and smaller. #BelieveInFilm #LargeFormat

Black and white photo of a mustachioed man in an alley with his hands in his pocket. There is extreme vignetting and an overall softness. Just a little swirlyness.

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

My custom 8x8 wet plate back is nearly done. Turns out the 1/16 dark slides DO work. Just needed some grinding on the edges. Set up so the slide is not removed; just raised to the red line. Might trim the front slide a little and add a handle… Will need inserts. #BelieveInFilm #LargeFormat

Front of the custom dry plate holder. Red mark at the bottom of the front dark slide.

The back of the holder. You can’t tell but the dark slide back here is short so it can’t be accidentally grabbed.

This is the front with the dark slide pulled up to show a cardboard insert meant to hold a piece of paper instead of a plate.

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Awesome! I have a (mostly) working T-P on a French tailboard 5x7 but it’s the standard style behind the lens and is not really swappable. I have a front mounted LF shutter, but it’s more like a packard (just b and 1/60) AND it’s not big enough for this petzval! 😅😅

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Nice!! 😅😅 Very similar sliding box style! But I’m pretty sure my lens was originally sold as a magic lantern lens and was later cut to add Waterhouse stops to make it a taking lens.

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Awesome! Yeah, was wondering lens size as I am also just messing with an old petzval. I measured at about 165/6.5” and it’s on a camera that is marked for 5x7 and 1/2 plate but can potentially shoot up to 8x8, but 5x7 already seems to be pushing it for the coverage. 😅

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

... Ray Morgenweck/Star Camera for mounting on this new/reproduction of an early sliding box cam. The cut out for the stops and the holder inside, is a little rough. The focus rack and pinion is also a little rough.

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Also, it covered the full 8x8 frame well with the stop in, but clearly doesnt really cover wide open. Ive roughly estimated this as a 6.5" f2.5 Petzval made by Darlot c. 1870s-80s? Imported by AT Thompson, Boston. I suspect it was a Magic Lantern lens but was cut for waterhouse stops by...

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It also possible the focus is fine and the subjects are too far outside of the center of the image. In my first test with this lens, I used the single included Waterhouse stop. Which I estimated (SUPER roughly) as f16. Way more depth of field. This was wide open and its a ~150yo Petzval...

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I have two calipers. A nice mechanical one and a shitty digital one (held together with tape). The mechanical one is sufficient for almost everything I need to measure. But maybe I need to break out the digital one here and compare the depth measurements again. Also maybe I just didn’t nail focus!

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Not sure why it seems like it back focused. The film plane depth and the gg depth seem perfect. May put some felt strips on the back to see if I can just push it a little tighter in the slot. 😥

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Father and daughter ghosts, Philadelphia 2026 Star Camera Company 8x8 Camera, paper negative on Adox Lupex (rated at ISO .02), ~3 min @ 2.5 1st test with the new back. Seems to be just slightly back focusing 😬. Daughter enjoys being a ghost. #BelieveInFilm

A dark black and white photo of two chairs in front of a stone building. There is a slightly blurry man in one chair and a ghostly apparition of a small girl in the other.

The large wooden camera set up on a tripod.

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The good news is my wet plate back seems to totally fit and should work. The bad news is I estimated the tolerance wrong so a 1/16 darkslide is definitely too thick. 😅 #BelieveInFilm

The open back of a 19th century style camera with a 3d printed back installed. But the back is wide open because it needs 2x dark slides to function and it has none.

Closeup of the top of the plate holder sliding out of the camera.

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Argh! 😅😅 Don’t think I’ve ever played with an Irvine. 😬🤷‍♂️

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Very cool! Hard to tell scale, and cant see shape of the wing. Looks kit built but I cant figure out which kit.😅 The two wires coming off the side mean it's a control line model rather than rc. It could be a luscombe, but I think only the Phantom had a round cowl like that?? What is the wingspan?

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Yes, there is a little grub screw on both sides to hold the carb on. 😅 You can bolt these to a stand to test them and that’s what I’ll do with this one. 👍👍

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

…The symptoms you described. I wondered if there was a tiny foreign body in there. Interesting that you got it unstuck and it’s advancing intermittently. 🤔

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Ah, ok! I just opened mine as well to take a look. And saw that little tab below the button that is disengaged by pressing the button and engaged by advancing the film. Also noticed the button rotates when the film is advanced And it seems like if that rotation is stopped/jammed you will get…

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Yup, this motor came with a well known 3rd party Perry carb which is indeed the black thing. 😅 The big screw is the needle valve for high speed mixture. I’ve marked up the other parts here!:

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

extremely satisfying. 👍👍😅

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Frozen/grimy HB .15, made in Germany, with a May ‘83 production stamp. Unseized, cleaned, and now with great compression and ready to run. Extremely rewarding. #ModelAirplanes

The same motor now much cleaner and reassembled.

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

1st two pieces printed well and look like they will fit the camera perfectly. 🤞

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Ah, ok. So that seems promising. That it’s charging the shutter and firing. Just not engaging the drive train! Yes, I bet you have some gummed up catch that’s not easing that button. And you can trace it and “encourage” it if you remove the bottom. I have one of these maybe I’ll take a look later.

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Awesome! There were definitely versions of this motor for c/l. I originally learned on c/l but now haven’t done it in a very long time. Building full size is amazing and terrifying.

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It’s fusion 360. An autodesk product, but not autocad. Good for 3d modeling objects for 3d printing.

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Extremely rewarding: going through dad’s “old engine box”, fishing out this beat up castor-oil caked + seized Enya .29 (‘64-74), cleaning it up together, and getting it to a point where it looks way better and will likely run. I was sure this was not salvageable. #ModelAirplanes #BeforeAndAfter

An extremely grimy old nitro r/c engine.

The same engine, now shiny and with the muffler strapped on and a prop mounted.

Different view of the same motor looking shiny.

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I believe it will “fit” the camera. I have not attempted to make it fit any real format, just maximized the size that would fit in the camera which will be ~8x8 but not exactly. If the back works I’ll have to make a series of correctly sized inserts! 😅 Or just always cut wonky paper sizes. 😅

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Won’t wind on but ALSO won’t release the shutter?? Yeah, it’s sometimes not that hard to open the bottom and figure out where it’s binding and nudge the process back into sync! And sometimes that ends up being definitively the end of the camera! 😅🥶

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

R/c clubs can be so gate-keeping and people wonder why there aren’t more/younger folks learning to fly r/c. Bad when it’s people just expressing interest. Worse when it’s people who already invested time and sufficient commitment to build something! 😥

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Well, the easy way (unsurprisingly) didn’t work. So I’m doing it the harder (but much more likely to work) way. 😅 #BelieveInFilm #fusion360

Screen shot of me remixing a 3d printable wet plate holder piece by piece so it will fit the custom slot in the back of the star camera.

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

It’s been a while since I printed one of these. I think I used either Petg or matte pla+. I never use abs. The tests I’m doing right now running in pla until I think it will work and then I’ll switch to the matte +! 😅

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I’m not sure if anyone else is interested in this, but Robert Bieber apparently released a 5th version of his 3d printed plate holder design. I’ve printed several of his 3rd and 4th versions in different sizes and have thought they are great. But this new version requires no non-printed parts!

printables.com

Wet Plate Holder v5 by Robert Bieber | Download free STL model | Printables.com

Plate holder for wet plate photography with simple, easy-to-assemble double darkslide design. | Download free 3D printable STL models

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I am attempting the simplest possible way around not having a back: really simple remix of this 3d printable holder. Probably won’t work, but it’s an easy test. The problem is this takes an 8x8(ish?) custom made wooden holder with masks for 5x7, 7x5, 1/2, and 1/4 plates. #BelieveInFilm

Screen shot of Scott Henderson’s elegantly simple wet plate holder design on printables.

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Chad Hill @chadhill.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Unfortunately, I don’t have an actual back for this. There is a beautiful insert with the ground glass that slides out and is supposed to be replaced by a wet plate holder, but I don’t have the holder. I made this photo by taping paper to the gg and loading it in red light. 😅😅

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