Whoa… Big news on the camera patent scouting front today: Nikon appears to be tinkering with the idea with creating a special 35mm SLR replacement back that would turn a film camera into a digital camera!
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This Holga camera is named the “Holga-Cam of the Apocalypse” and is worth $24,000. Photographer Mike Martens created it using a Holga 120N camera body worth $25 and a Phase One P25 digital back worth $24,000. The two components are fused together using a horseman lens board (hence the camera’s name) and a foot of black gaffer’s tape. The camera shoots low-fi photographs at 22 megapixels. You can find more images of the camera here and sample photographs shot with it here.
(via Photon Detector)
In this social media age, companies are constantly dreaming up all kinds of random ideas for demonstrating the benefits of their products, and hoping that the videos will go viral (an example would be this bulletproof glass CEO that literally stood behind his product). A couple of years ago, Phase One wanted to demonstrate the durability of its digital backs for medium format cameras, so they came up with the “African Elephant Durability Test.” The test proved conclusively that if you’re going into environments where elephants might be looking to stomp on your camera, don’t bring along your $14,000+ Hasselblad back — bring a Phase One back instead!
Camera review sites should start subjecting the latest DSLRs to this test. It’d certainly be an interesting addition to camera reviews.
(via Fstoppers)
Photographer Mitchell Feinberg wanted to continue shooting 8×10 large format once his Polaroid stockpile runs out, so he decided to create his own 8×10 digital back. He spent over a year looking for a manufacturer and designing the back, and shelled out enough money to buy a good-sized house:
The development and production of two backs (I wanted to have a spare) was equal to the cost of a good size house – before the housing crash. I know it sounds insane, but the financials on it are not so bad: I used to shoot on average 7.5 Polaroids per photo, and I shoot between 400 to 500 images a year. That’s at least 3000 Polaroids. At 15 bucks a pop. Or about 50K per year, minimum. Polaroid was at one point my highest single cost.
Now he’s the owner of the world’s largest color capture back (two of them, in fact), which shoots 10MP photos. He uses it to shoot test shots before using film for the final captures.
Mitchell Feinberg’s 8×10 Digital Capture Back [A Photo Editor]
Image credit: Photograph by Mitchell Feinberg and used with permission
