The blueprint of the exceptional achievement of a UPT teacher made available free of charge to those interested

Lecturer engineer Ciprian Dughir, Ph.D

The teachers of Politehnica University Timișoara cannot catch a break even on vacation. Lecturer engineer Ciprian Dughir, Ph.D., a teacher at the Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technologies within UPT, a photography enthusiast, built, from scratch, a "large format" 4x5" camera, the design, project, and execution belonging entirely to him. On the occasion of the Centenary of Politehnica University Timișoara, in honor of which he built it, he wants to offer the execution blueprints to all those interested free of charge.

Passionate about photography since the age of 7, when he received his first camera, Ciprian Dughir holds courses in the field of photography, is a permanent guest on the Foto Show, and a co-founder of the Fotovest Photography Group. He has long wanted a large format 4x5" camera but given their enormous price, he decided to build one himself.

The first result was a full 3D, studio, "rail camera" with all the moving parts printed by him using a 3D printer. Later, he came up with the idea of ​​a portable and light camera, weighing only 930 grams, also of the “large format” type, made of birch wood and 3D printed parts. The cost of production is less than 200 euros for both cameras.

Why such a camera? Not necessarily because of the resolution (which can reach 15 Giga-pixels in the case of black and white photos), but for the freedom of movement offered by a camera like this: you can change the focus planes on all axes and in all directions; you can change the geometric perspective and the relative size of the objects in the frame.

The cameras made by Ciprian Dughir were presented on Tuesday, September 1, 2020, by their author and by the rector of UPT, associate professor Florin Dragan, Ph.D., during a press conference that took place, of course in compliance with the rules of distancing imposed by the pandemic, in the lobby of the Library of Politehnica University Timisoara. The blueprints of the mentioned cameras can be downloaded from the author's website, www.dughir.ro.