A 3D Printed Camera You Can Now Download, Shutter And All

A couple of years ago we were excited to read news of an entirely 3D printed camera, right down to the shutter. We wrote it up back then but sadly the required STL files were not yet available. Now after time away with his family, its creator [Mark Hiltz] is back. The medium-format Pioneer Camera can now be downloaded for printing in its entirety under a Creative Commons licence.

Looking at the design, it appears to be a relatively straightforward build. The shutter is extremely simple, as far as we can see, relying on magnets to ensure that the open part of its rotation is at an unstable repulsing point between stable magnetic poles. The images aren’t perfect because he’s using a very simple lens, but this is part of the charm of a camera like this one. We hope that people will take it and produce refinements to the design making for a cheap and good entry to medium format photography.

While you’re printing your own Pioneer, take a look at our original coverage.

16 thoughts on “A 3D Printed Camera You Can Now Download, Shutter And All

    1. I think the non-commercial clause of the license is a great way to make sure this will remain a very niche product in relative obscurity, as it will disincentivise people from making cameras to sell.

      1. Chris, this is a 3D-printed simple box camera with a non-photographic single element lens that uses larger, more expensive 120 film, and due to Chromatic aberration of said singlet, is really best suited for black and white. It has as many parts as Hobby Lobby and Joann Fabrics as it does from Home Depot. It is a niche product lmao

        1. As a 42 year old millennial I can confirm. I didn’t see me first digital camera until 6th grade in 1994. Good old Apple QuickTake. The school had purchased one for the technology lab.

  1. In my younger days I would definitely have built this thing, had it been possible given the lack of FDM printers in the 1970s and 80s. I would probably then taken apart a cheap extension tube set for screw or bayonet mounted SLR lenses and used the hardware to make an interchangeable lens version.

    Sadly, my film camera days are over.

    I’m tempted to try this build, even now, but my skills at 3D printing are not very high.

  2. More seriously, these days, when someone says “I built a camera”, the first thing I think of is something that plugs into a Raspberry Pi. The idea that it might be a film camera doesn’t come forth immediately. So it probably would have been good to mention “film” in the summary (tags don’t count).

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