Making a digital camera is a project that appears easy enough, but it’s one whose complexity increases depending on the level to which a designer is prepared to go. At the simplest a Raspberry Pi and camera module can be stuck in a 3D printed case, but in that case, the difficult work of getting the drivers and electronics sorted out has already been done for you.
At the other end of the scale there’s [Wenting Zhang]’s open source mirrorless digital camera project, in which the design and construction of a full-frame CCD digital camera has been taken back to first principles. To understand the scale of this task, this process employs large teams of engineers when a camera company does it, and while it’s taken a few years and the software isn’t perhaps as polished as your Sony or Canon, the fact it’s been done at all is extremely impressive.
Inside is a Kodak full-frame sensor behind the Sony E-mount lens, for which all the complex CCD timing and acquisition circuitry has been implemented. The brains of the show lie in a Xilinx Zynq ARM-and-FPGA in a stack of boards with a power board and the CCD board. The controls and battery are in a grip, and a large display is on the back of the unit.
We featured an earlier version of this project last year, and this version is a much better development with something like the ergonomics, control, and interface you would expect from a modern consumer camera. The screen update is still a little slow and there are doubtless many tweaks to come, but this really feels close to being a camera you’d want to try. There’s an assembly video which we’ve placed below the break, feast your eyes on it.
Still work to do about the image quality, maybe it’s a detective sensor since there are weird vertical lines/artifacts in the pictures, and color science is all but easy, but I’m very excited at the idea of open pro cameras! I want a full-spectrum camera to use as a toy for experimentation, and these cameras would be perfect for the job!
This is definitely a project I would fund if I had the means to!
Not full spectrum, but visible+IR
https://github.com/will127534/StarlightEye/
and the version they will have on tindie has a I2C controlled IR Filter Switch, basically you can from a raspberry pi 5 command the IR cut filter to be inline with the 4k sensor for nice RGGB images, or away from the sensor for IR images.
An admirable goal!
The next step could be to make it adaptable to various lens mounts.
MaMa once told me, the World runs on Adapters..
Cap
That would be the only known way to overcome xkcd 927.
With the current design flange distance could be a problem: for example, L-mount from E-mount would require a 2mm adapter, and Z-mount is 2mm shorter so it’s either impossible or requiring glass in the adapter. I guess a solution would be to adopt the full frame mount with the shortest flange distance (M58?) and adapt other lenses to it, but adapters (especially cheap ones) often aren’t electronically connected
That’s the thing eh, there is no need for an open source camera since the issue is the mount and not the camera so much.
And apart from the obvious flange distance issue the biggest one might be the various ways they electronically interact and the possible deliberate discouraging of third parties using those electronic connections.
Perhaps someone should figure out how to explain the issue to those EU people that force interoperability to trick them in doing something to make camera companies play nice.
Thanks! I was unaware of various flange distances.
Fantastic project and the impetus for your solution (in-progress) for the fun of it, suits me right. Also side note, I only speak English and your narration was super clear and just technical enough to not overheat my sensors. Thank you!
Bravo! That is quite a complex project and very well executed. It shows what’s capable these days with various forms of 3D printing and the availability to layout and have built complex PCBs. I imagine the firmware could end up being a lifetime project though :-)
That music. Now I want General Tsao’s Chicken.
Huh, it says S1 on it. Is that a reference to the Leica S1?
First thought: quasi affordable astro-photography.
I just want a top camera model without an eyefinder, which is a complete waste of resources.
In what world could there be absolutely zero reason for a viewfinder to exist?
Do you hold cameras out at arm’s length or at your waist and just guess at the exact composure and focus? Use a tripod or gimbal every single time? Go cross-eyed holding it up four inches from your face and cupping your hand to shade the rear screen with when trying to see fine details? A decent viewfinder puts an image across a fairly decent angle of view while you hold it stabilized against your face without eyestrain because the image is focused at infinity, and it even usually supports diopter adjustment for eyeglass wearers. And it eliminates extraneous light sources in a way other than just having incredibly high backlight brightness. That’s all the case even if you don’t have some other function for it like eye control autofocus.
That being said I think there’s a few compact ones that either don’t have one or make it so small that while it may not be as useful, it’s also taking up no more space than a mode dial or something.
This. If I were to drop one of the two screens on my camera, it would be the back LCD screen. A viewfinder screen, esp if it’s a good one, is much more accurate, less glarey, and altogether more “focused” on the task at hand — taking pictures.
But hey, some people don’t like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Let them eat pastrami.
Fair. But they’ve already taken away the mirror, they’re not getting my peanut butter too. :D
I was hoping for an analog camera (with film), but I’m waiting.
(sounds of 3d printer reving up)