YouTube creator and do-it-yourself enthusiast Penguin DIY recently built a secret camera hidden inside a walnut shell, and it's an excellent, albeit nutty, example of what creative people with engineering skills can do with miniaturized camera technology.
Photographer Albert Cornelissen wanted a medium-format rangefinder camera that could utilize great glass and wouldn't break the bank. The second restriction meant the legendary Mamiya 7 and Fujifilm GF670 cameras were out of the question, so Cornelissen took matters into his own hands and built his dream camera: The MRF2.
Canadian photographer and talented camera hacker/builder Malcolm-Jay Wilson has combined two of his recent camera builds into a new black-and-white digital camera with a waist-level viewfinder, and it's fantastic.
Reddit user Dycus built a camera using the sensor from an optical mouse. After about 65 hours of work, Dycus had a low-resolution black-and-white camera with multiple shooting modes, housed in a nifty 3D-printed body.
German computer engineer and builder Yannick Richter, who goes by Gigawipf online, built a new 3,200-megapixel 3D-printed medium-format camera that relies on a linear CCD scanner. As Gigawipf describes it, the camera, Project Gigapixel, is much more than just a scanner in a box, though.
Filmmaker and cinematographer Tom Kucy, who runs the YouTube channel Manual Not Found, took apart a classic 1950s era Sankyo 8-R film camera and gave it a new, surreal digital life.
Each year, my photographic instrumentation students build very simple focus stacking systems. After several years, I decided to construct a more advanced version that could move a stepper-motor-driven stage to precise positions, automatically collect a series of images, and then manually use a stacking program for combination into a single high-depth-of-field image.
Photographer Malcolm Wilson, who recently converted a broken film camera into an infrared digital point-and-shoot, is back with another awesome camera build. This time, Wilson combined a Mamiya C220 TLR viewfinder, Raspberry Pi, and Sony image sensor to create a waist-level viewfinder digital camera.
A photographer and software developer fed up with paying endless subscription fees has decided to help himself -- and his fellow photographers -- by building not one, but four free apps.
Analog photographers love trying new and unusual things. Whether it's shooting on expired film, skipping film altogether, or developing film using odd ingredients. Sweet Lou Photography opted for this last type of experimenting and developed his film inside a Jägerbomb. Did it work?
Photographer and do-it-yourself enthusiast James Warner, who goes by snappiness on YouTube, is back with yet another crazy project. This time, Warner built a massive 2-in-1 Sony digital camera.
Photographer and artist Red transformed the 15-year-old Canon PowerShot A490 compact camera into an impressively capable camera. The camera, which launched in 2010 for just over $100, delivers surprisingly good image quality, at least after a bit of hacking.
Physicist and self-described creator Sebastian Staacks is back with another wild photo booth creation. Rather than a DSLR-powered "bullet time" photo booth, Staacks built a Game Boy Camera photo booth.
Canadian musician turned photographer Malcolm-Jay Wilson is back with another awesome camera conversion project. In 2023, Wilson converted a broken Yashica Electro 35mm film camera into a Raspberry Pi-powered digital camera. Now he has returned with an infrared camera sensor to create a compact IR point-and-shoot camera.
Pick up a dusty old lens from a flea market, an estate sale, or even your own forgotten storage bin, and you might notice something strange glinting beneath the surface of the front element: delicate white threads, odd patterns like spiderwebs or frost creeping across the inside of the glass. That eerie substance is lens fungus -- an unwelcome guest in the world of photography that quietly invades optical systems, thrives in darkness and moisture, and, if left untreated, can cause permanent and costly damage to your equipment.
Pioneering photographer Ian Ruhter, known for creating cameras out of surprising objects, is turning trash into cameras.
Last year, Nico Rahardian Tangara went to a flea market in Sydney, Australia, and found an old, non-functional Canon 514XL-S Super 8 movie camera for just $5. Tangara bought the camera and converted into a working 4Kp60 camcorder using a Raspberry Pi system.
As I’ve collected more and more camera equipment, especially vintage film gear, I’ve amassed a collection of quite a few lenses that I found for peanuts at flea markets, thrift, and antique stores, or online through marketplaces like eBay.
An Italian photographer frustrated with low-light image quality took matters into his own hands by building an 80mm f/0.5 lens for his Sony mirrorless camera.
Raspberry Pi computers are a boon for tinkerers inclined to design one-of-a-kind cameras. And now one Redditor has made a Raspberry Pi Zero-based instant camera.
The Eclíck is an open-source do-it-yourself robotic panoramic tripod head that promises photographers and filmmakers a robust tool to capture 360-degree panoramas, timelapses, and gigapixel images with precision and ease.
friend of PetaPixel and photographer Tom Calton 3D-printed his own lens, and it is unlike anything photographers have seen before, probably with very good reason.
Many photographers over the years have toyed with adapting old cinema projector lenses to their modern cameras. Projector lenses encourage creative experimentation because they are plentiful online, relatively cheap (some can be found for around $50 and sometimes even less), and produce interesting images full of character. James Warner, who goes by Snappiness, created a new video explaining how photographers can create their own "amazing portrait lens" using projector lenses.
An experimental photographer customized a 100-year-old 360-degree camera so it can shoot four rolls of film at the same time to create one cohesive picture.
Photographer James Warner recently created a clever $10 do-it-yourself waist-level viewfinder that works with any camera. Now the builder, who goes by Snappiness on YouTube, is back with another fantastic project, this time turning a digital camera made for kids into a twin-lens reflex-style creation.
In March 2023, photographer Mark Hiltz designed and 3D-printed a fully functioning large-format (120) film camera, including a custom 3D-printed shutter. In the hectic two years since Hiltz met his partner and had a baby. He has now returned to his camera project and improved its performance.
Photographer James Warner, who goes by Snappiness online, built a do-it-yourself waist-level viewfinder that works for any camera, whether it's analog or digital. Better yet, it requires only about $10 worth of materials.
In the spring of 2023, I received a phone call from Peter Blackberg (an old friend, RIT alumnus, and a space enthusiast) when he asked if I would join a call with NASA astronaut Don Pettit. Don wanted to build a star tracker for his next space flight.
Photographer Ralph Man developed a highly versatile new pinhole camera system, the Mania MFZ, which stands for "Multiformat Zoom."
The Leica M2Pi starts with a question few dared to answer: What if the analog purity of a Leica M2 met the experimental, digital world of a Raspberry Pi?
The high-speed class at Rochester Institute of Technology learns Arduino programming and some simple circuits as an introduction on triggering high-speed flashes in complicated situations. One of the easiest high-speed events to study is a balloon popping. This simple event is also one of the safest high-speed events too.
PetaPixel has covered many do-it-yourself (DIY) camera projects, but none quite like engineer and photographer Wenting Zhang's open-source Sitina S1 full-frame mirrorless camera.
DIY and vintage camera enthusiast Max Vega did a full-scale conversion of a Barbie camcorder from 2001, turning the hot pink toy into a fully functional modern camera, all while maintaining the charm of the camera's lackluster imaging capabilities.
Overheating cameras are nothing new, especially as cameras get more powerful and offer more demanding, higher-quality video features. However, how each camera maker deals with this issue varies dramatically. And sometimes, customers themselves need to step up and develop a solution.
Austrian photographer Markus Hofstaetter is back with another exciting project. This time, the photographer built a high-end film scanning setup using a Leica M11 camera. How does it compare to a purpose-built professional film scanner?
Seeed Studio is putting the finishing touches on what it calls the world's "most advanced AI camera." A modular, customizable device, the reCamera can run computer vision and artificial intelligence tasks on-device.
A new wedge-shaped 3D-printed tripod lets photographers and videographers place their cameras just centimeters above the ground, ensuring they can get dynamic low-angle shots without breaking the bank.
3D printers open up entire new vistas of creativity for photographers. Whether you’re into cosplay and creating costumes and props for your portraits or looking to achieve original shots using intricate rigging and mounting setups that are entirely bespoke to your use case, the ability to take a spool of plastic fiber and turn it into a complex and durable part using an appliance that can fit on a benchtop is, in my opinion, one of the most exciting advancements in the at-home maker movement in years.
Of all the low-resolution digital cameras from the 1990s, none has had the lasting cultural impact of the monochromatic, 0.014-megapixel Nintendo Game Boy Camera. Romanian video game technology company, Epilogue, has turned the Game Boy Camera into a webcam, offering nostalgia-infused fun for teleconferences.
In 2016, photographer and filmmaker Josh Gladstone designed a way to use Fujifilm Instax film in vintage Kodak cameras. It was very hands-on and had some limitations. Eight years later, Gladstone is back with a much more elegant 3D-printed solution.
This article is about how to make a time-lapse system that controls the lighting conditions and triggers the camera shutter for time-lapse plants.
Alongside great image and build quality, one of the most compelling aspects of using a Leica M digital camera is their access to such a diverse library of amazing lenses. However, some of these lenses, vintage and modern alike, lack electronic communication with the camera, leading to photographers manually tracking important metadata like lens selection and focal length. Henley Bailey of Akara Labs has a clever and affordable solution to this problem.
Third-party repair company iFixit announced an abrupt end to its collaboration with Galaxy smartphone maker Samsung last week.
Kodak Aerochrome is a legendary film unlike any other. It is a false-color, near-infrared emulsion that is as beautiful as it is challenging to develop. It's also tough to find because Kodak killed it over a decade ago.
Predicting aurora activity is exceptionally challenging.
Musician, director, and video-game enthusiast Chris Graue of the 8-bit ska punk band Lo(u)ser filmed an amazing music video in late 2021 using a Nintendo Game Boy Camera. He has now created a tool that would've made the project much more convenient -- a tripod mount.
Erik de Poorter from Concept Crafted Creations on YouTube created a brilliant, motorized ceiling-mounted camera system that may be perfect for content creators.
A clever engineer has turned a computer mouse into a working camera. The fun DIY project may not deliver impeccable image quality, but it's a great way to repurpose an old mouse.
Finnish photographer Petri Damstén crafted a digital clock within a flash unit using a Raspberry Pi Pico, and it looks like a delightful accessory that many photographers would pay good money for.
British electrical engineer Jenny List, known for their extensive work at Hackaday, released a 3D-printable cartridge to fit Fujifilm Single-8 home movie cameras.
