$15 HDR Camera

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.

28 thoughts on “$15 HDR Camera

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. “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

  4. 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

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

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