Super-Cool DIY Digital Instant Camera ‘Prints’ Photos On Reusable Cartridges
Strange Inventions Lab has designed a custom instant camera that uses full-color e-paper displays as physical "digital film," and it's awesome.
Strange Inventions Lab has designed a custom instant camera that uses full-color e-paper displays as physical "digital film," and it's awesome.
It's possible to run the pioneering 1993 first-person shooter video game Doom on just about anything, even cameras. By using Magic Lantern software on a Canon EOS 550D from 2010, also known as the EOS Rebel T2i and EOS Kiss X4, photographers can install a custom build of Doom on their APS-C cameras.
Keychain cameras are all the rage these days. After the success of the Kodak Charmera, it is of little surprise that other companies are getting in on the fun. What sets the new Keymera apart, though, is that it's 3D-printable and can be built by photographers at home.
Photographer and creator Mr. 50mm designed a DIY digital rangefinder, which only requires about $200-$250 worth of parts.
A husband-and-wife team is producing their own 1920s-era film, similar to the one Oskar Barnack used, in the "world's smallest film factory", which they intend to shoot using a 100-year-old Leica camera.
A designer has built a fun camera that gets people outside and exploring the world around them.
You can make a pinhole camera out of just about anything -- as an Italian photographer recently proved by building one from pasta. Continuing that playful nod to culinary heritage via the medium of photography, Martin Cheung has been creating images with a Chinese roast duck as his camera.
I love panoramic photography. There is just something special about a super-wide aspect ratio that flexes my creative muscles. I'm far from the only one. Photographer Jace LeRoy, who goes by analog_astronaut on social media, has also been bitten by the panorama bug. He recently showed off a camera he built, the Infidex 176, which uses 35mm film to capture 72 x 24 millimeter frames, and it's awesome.
A film photographer has relived the tale of his creation: the 'little stupid camera' -- a custom 35mm SLR that could shoot 180 frames per roll.
Adapters to use DSLR lenses on modern mirrorless cameras are very common parts of photography kits. They are extremely useful tools that enable photographers to use their existing, older lenses on new mirrorless cameras. However, as New Zealand builder James, who goes by Ancient on YouTube, shows, these adapters can be so much more and capture photos and videos that would otherwise be impossible.
Berlin-based Italian photographer Paride Ambrogi recently combined two of his loves, photography and pasta, in a brilliant, possibly tasty way. Ambrogi made the Ravihole Camera, a working pinhole camera made entirely from fresh pasta dough.
Photographer James Warner, known for his excellent YouTube channel, snappiness, is always taking on new photography projects. They often involve taking things apart and putting them back together in new, exciting ways. Warner's latest project involves building a mini retro Kodak photo printing kiosk for his desk.
A Chinese design account, PerceBound, shared a clever 3D-printed Fujifilm camera-themed battery and memory card case. It's a silly, but great idea.
The DJI Osmo Nano is a clever, compact modern action camera with cutting-edge features. But what if it looked and acted less like a modern action camera and more like a classic waist level-viewfinder Hasselblad camera? For some reason, there's a 3D-printed shooting kit that answers that very question.
"Programmer by day, photographer by weekend" Cristian Băluță could not find the precise camera he wanted in the market, so he made it himself. Băluță expertly took the internal components from the Panasonic Lumix G9 II Micro Four Thirds camera and put them inside a Leica M replica body he made. It was a labor of love, and while the photographer admits the result isn't necessarily the dream camera he imagined, the project is incredible.
The Kodak Charmera keychain camera has been a smash hit. Sold in blind boxes, the 1.6-megapixel retro-styled toy camera was one of the biggest photo gifts of the holidays. However, straight out of the box, its capabilities are arguably a bit lacking, thanks in large part to its tiny built-in lens. That's where expert camera modifier James Warner, or Snappiness as he's known online, comes in. What would happen if you gave the Kodak Charmera a better, bigger lens?
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 …
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.
