$15 HDR camera

posted Jul 16th 2009 10:00am by Caleb Kraft
filed under: digital cameras hacks

rewire1 (Custom)

[Steve] was planning a 15 mile hiking trip when he came up with this idea. He wanted to get some good HDR photography, but didnt’ want to lug around his 5D MKII. He managed to pick up a couple of cheap Polaroid X530s. These have decent optics and record in RAW format, which is pretty impressive for something he got for 99cents plus shipping. He had all of the buttons wired for external control via a Viliv umpc. As you can see on his site, his results are quite nice. Of course, you don’t actually have to hack your camera to make HDR images.

Comments [28]

tagged: hdr, photography, viliv

Reader Comments

what the deuce? where’s the story?

Posted at 10:12 am on Jul 16th, 2009 by cryptochronolite

Where is the link then !!

Posted at 10:23 am on Jul 16th, 2009 by jay

i like the sound of plush shipping.

Posted at 10:33 am on Jul 16th, 2009 by nemo

“i like the sound of plush shipping.”

Haha, that made my day :)

Posted at 10:35 am on Jul 16th, 2009 by mess_maker

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0402/04020909polaroidx530.asp
A 3X zoom $400 MSRP camera for under a dollar?
Screw the Link, where can I buy this camera?!

Posted at 10:37 am on Jul 16th, 2009 by Will

“i like the sound of plush shipping.”

haha, that made my day :)

——

Of coarse you would :)

Posted at 10:39 am on Jul 16th, 2009 by hex4def6

I see no link to his images or his site. Halp!

Posted at 10:39 am on Jul 16th, 2009 by Mike

fixed the link. sorry about that guys.

Posted at 10:47 am on Jul 16th, 2009 by Caleb Kraft

Presumably he got really, really lucky when ebaying, since the x530 is not a one dollar camera.

Of course, I wouldn’t have to presume if there was a read link.

Come on, hackaday. First you start selling stuff, now you’re leaving out read links? You might as well merge with makezine now and get it over with.

Posted at 10:48 am on Jul 16th, 2009 by bbot

oh god his site is dark gray text on a black background.

Posted at 10:49 am on Jul 16th, 2009 by bbot

apparently he is just using the umpc as a fancy cable release, and doing the stacking in software.

he also calls the hdr images “technographs”, just like hitler.

also: hyperbole is literally the best thing ever

also also: to disable his ugly ass page style in firefox, go to view -> page style, then select no style.

Posted at 10:55 am on Jul 16th, 2009 by bbot

are we all supposed to already know what “hdr” means?

Posted at 10:56 am on Jul 16th, 2009 by Hitek146

“also also: to disable his ugly ass page style in firefox, go to view -> page style, then select no style.”

I thought his page was already set to “no style”
:P

“are we all supposed to already know what “hdr” means?”

Yes, you obviously don’t cruze teh internets enough

Posted at 11:11 am on Jul 16th, 2009 by brakk

So he just replaced the buttons with wires going to an external control…wouldn’t it be easier just to use a chdk script in a cheap Canon point-and-shoot?

Posted at 11:49 am on Jul 16th, 2009 by Rick

seems like a whole lot of trouble for HDR

i think that if he has two of these cams
it would be much cooler, to make a permanent
stereo rig insted..

HDR can be done without soldering, and
some over the top computer setup
waste of time.

/Kyndal

Posted at 12:12 pm on Jul 16th, 2009 by kyndal

I thought it was just my cheap monitor. I couldn’t even read the text unless I highlighted it.

Why do people do that? Do they even look at their own web pages?

Posted at 12:20 pm on Jul 16th, 2009 by jakdedert

i use a nikon D90 witch has exposure bracketing but this is still interesting

djbozz@gmail.com

Posted at 12:55 pm on Jul 16th, 2009 by BIOzZ

“of coarse”

hahahaha

Posted at 1:21 pm on Jul 16th, 2009 by slowbro

yeah typos are hilarious

Posted at 1:27 pm on Jul 16th, 2009 by dudebro

Just like Hitler? What have you been… ah, never mind.

Posted at 2:10 pm on Jul 16th, 2009 by Grommit

Relax bbot; the word “technograph” was coin due to a silly complaining comment, similar to it’s not a hack comments that are becoming a regular feature on hackaday :). People not paying attention to everything that was being said is one of the reasons Hitler was able to get by with his crap, that you brought hilter up. Anyway I thought technograph was a good simple, back at ya comment.

Though this is one of those, I’ll never duplicate hacks, it is why I visit hackaday. To see what the rest of the world is interested in, keep them coming.

Posted at 2:41 pm on Jul 16th, 2009 by static

It’s not “RAW” format, it’s just “raw” format. “Raw” is not an acronym, it is the literal meaning of the word “raw”. Every ICD has its own raw format because… every ICD has its own means of recording, interpreting, and transmitting data. It’s raw in the sense that it’s straight off the ICD without being transformed by the image processor in the camera.

Posted at 8:18 pm on Jul 16th, 2009 by sean

my previous post would make more sense if the first “raw” were in the original all-caps in which I wrote it.

Posted at 8:26 pm on Jul 16th, 2009 by sean

Sean, what’s an icd? Google says it’s an implantable cardioverter defibrillator.

Posted at 11:10 pm on Jul 16th, 2009 by grommit

@grommit: That’s what he was talking about.

Think about it…

Posted at 8:22 am on Jul 17th, 2009 by Alchemyguy

When all else fails and you want to get attention, compare something/one to Hitler.

Posted at 10:21 am on Jul 17th, 2009 by Jim K.

everyone missed the weirdest part of the post
“[Steve] was planning a 15 mile hiking trip”
…Whats Hiking?

Posted at 1:47 pm on Jul 17th, 2009 by noonevac

One revolution of the earth
around its axis made my day.

Posted at 2:37 am on Jul 21st, 2009 by Raymond

$15 HDR camera

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