
Frankencamera - franzb
https://frankencamera.wordpress.com/
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uxp100
Cool. I've thought about this a lot, just because the UX of now cheap older
cameras tends to be very good, for me at least, and the UX of the low end
digital tends to be very eh. > $1000 bodies, it's a different story of course.
It isn't exactly clear what I meant by UX; With my Minolta SRT 201, I can see
Aperture and Shutter speed at a glance, modify them with a quick, dedicated,
dial twist, have a distance scale on the lens, and look through a large,
somewhat bright viewfinder (Later Minolta viewfinders are noticeably brighter
though). The mirrorless experience on the low end really can't compete. Cheap
DSLRs are closer, but with shit viewfinders, and I hate the Canon top
screen/dial system, and harder to adapt old lenses.

This means you can use the Shutter speed dial, the combo shutter button is a
good idea that I did not think of at all (I always was thinking you'd use two
buttons, one to put the digital side in BULB, then the actual shutter, cause
I'm dumb). On the other hand, if I had a functional NEX-5, I don't think I
would have the heart to do it, and 38mm is maybe a little long for m4/3
general purpose. I like ~40mm on APS-C.

Really I also kinda wanted to write the sensor driver, but sourcing decent
sized image sensors seems impossible. I know some people who could maybe get
me cell phone size samples, but m4/3? I don't even know how, and I'd need a
decent datasheet too.

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keithpeter
I've often daydreamed about a sub-unit that could fit in the back of a film
camera and contain a sensor and some electronics. The sensor part would be
thin enough to fit over the pressure plate and the electronics would be in the
film can space along with a micro sd card for storage. The existing
aperture/shutter would continue to control the light reaching the sensor.
Basically digital film. That would be neat.

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jonah
I recall someone proposing this and maybe even attempting to prototype this
some years ago. Never worked. Maybe with more recent advances in the
miniaturization of electronics and batteries it would be possible.

~~~
jonah
Several concepts are linked below. None in production of course.

[http://petapixel.com/2012/12/17/nikon-patent-shows-a-back-
fo...](http://petapixel.com/2012/12/17/nikon-patent-shows-a-back-for-turning-
film-slrs-into-digital-cameras/)

[http://petapixel.com/2011/04/08/another-concept-design-
for-d...](http://petapixel.com/2011/04/08/another-concept-design-for-digital-
film/)

[http://petapixel.com/2013/08/16/convert-your-old-film-slr-
in...](http://petapixel.com/2013/08/16/convert-your-old-film-slr-into-a-
digital-camera-with-the-digipod/)

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fennecfoxen
I did the boring lazy technique of putting my grandfather's Canon 50mm/f1.4
thread-mount rangefinder lens on a Leica M8 (used, since I'm not made of
money). There are some nice, fast old lenses out there that take some very
pretty pictures.
[https://instagram.com/p/16q6fPwAc2/](https://instagram.com/p/16q6fPwAc2/)

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marincounty
"I first tried printing my design at school but the quality wasn’t high enough
for such detailed work, so I sent my design to a 3-D printing company in
London which used the incredible SLS printing method to create a strong,
accurate and flexible print in nylon."

Could you mention the company, or printer they used?

~~~
josephpmay
Well it was probably either a Stratasys or 3D systems machine. They basically
have a duopoly on professional grade 3D printers.

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loosescrews
There is a cool Stanford project that at least used to go by the same name:

[https://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/fcam/](https://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/fcam/)

[http://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/camera-2.0/](http://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/camera-2.0/)

I use it on my Nokia N900.

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geuis
This is an excellent example of how not to use javascript on your site. If you
look in the html, all the content is there. But nothing displays for many
seconds while some js is waiting for something else to load.

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dharma1
bah. Hoped this would be some kind of a neat large CMOS sensor/fpga/ARM SoC
camera module which you can drop anywhere but basically it's just putting
existing sony nex electronics inside an old camera body.

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billconan
few years ago I had exactly the same idea. It's really great to see someone
realized this.

I could imagine that this would be a great kick starter project. If there is a
kit for me to do this, I will buy!

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yaleman
This is cute, but I'm entirely sick of people who think "I want to do a cool
thing for myself, can you fund it through kickstarter" is OK.

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HOLYCOWBATMAN
more like Frankenwebsite, white page if no javascript for a simple blogpost...
pass

