The first piece of equipment you will need if you choose to directly expose the paper is a camera of some sort. You need to find a camera with a large aperture and a large enough film plate that your images are worth viewing. Remember, you can’t enlarge the image, so choose a camera that fits your needs. A 35mm camera will produce a 35mm image, a 6×6 120 camera will produce a 6×6 image, and so on.

While just about any camera with a reasonably large aperture will work, I love to use my old 95A. This camera works amazingly well for blueprint photography. While the exposed image is not very large, the image is usually quite sharp, and the optics are surprisingly clear. Not that clear optics matter much with blueprint paper. Most importantly, it is commonly available at bargain prices, and it has a bulb exposure setting that allows the photographer to keep the shutter open.

It is worth noting that since this process is a direct exposure process, and print will only be as large as the exposure area in your camera, you may wish to consider using a large format camera. This medium is so forgiving, you may even want to try to build your own. I’ve had excellent results with both a home-built box camera and a home-built bellows camera, both made from cardboard and copious amounts of duct tape.

My most interesting results so far have been with a box-style (think: Brownie) camera built out of black foamcore board and duct tape. I’ve been using the same 210mm lens I was using on the view camera and the results I’ve gotten have been very promising. I’ll scan some as soon as I get a few worth showing off.

I tend to use a Graflex Crown Graphic press camera, a 4×5 view camera with limited front movement and a great deal of flexibility. It’s probably the cheapest press camera around these days, and within a week of use it became my favorite camera for blueprint photography.

I have a RiteWay film holder and just cut the paper down to fit. Two shots are all I need in a day most of the time, and it’s great to be able to reload the camera in the sun.