When someone hacks together a digital camera with a Raspberry Pi, the limiting factor for serious photography is usually the sensor. No offense to the fine folks at the foundation, but even the “HQ” camera, while very good, isn’t quite professional grade. That’s why when photographer [Malcolm Wilson] put together this “Mini Hasselblad” style camera, he hacked in a 1″ sensor.
The sensor in question came in the form of a OneInchEye V2, from [Will Whang] on Tindie. The OneInch Eye is a great project in its own right: it takes a Sony IMX283 one-inch CMOS image sensor, and packages it with an IMU and thermal sensor on a board that hooks up to the 4-lane MIPI interface on the Raspberry Pi CM4 and Pi 5.
Sensor in hand, [Malcolm] needed but to figure out power and view-finding. Power is provided by a Geekworm X1200 battery hat. That’s the nice thing about the Pi ecosystem: with so many modules, it’s like LEGO for makers. The viewfinder, too, uses 4″ HDMI screen sold for Pi use, and he’s combined it with a Mamiya C220 TLR viewfinder to give that look-down-and-shoot effect that gives the project the “Mini Hasselblad” moniker.
The OneInchEye module came set up for C-mount lenses, and [Malcolm] stuck with that, using some Fujinon TV lenses he already had on hand. [Malcolm] has released STL files of his build under a Creative Commons NonCommercial license, but he’s holding the code back for subscribers to his Substack.
This isn’t the first Pi-based camera we’ve seen from [Malcolm], and there’ve been quite a few others on these pages over the years. There was even a Hackaday version, to test out the “official” module [Malcolm] eschewed.
The guy’s name is misspelled every time it appears in the article. /pedant
I particularly like the sudden, jarring switch from ‘Malcom Wilson’ to ‘Malcom Jay’.
@Tyler: Here’s a hint: Malcolm typically contains two ‘l’s. ;)
Sounds interesting, too bad the post is hidden behind a subscription wall.
Agreed, I think it’s best if articles on here stick to subjects where the source can be accessed by all.
There is the original one which isn’t paid
https://substack.com/@camerahacksbymalcolmjay/p-171809067
Sorry about that. The wall went up after this was posted, for some reason; I was able to read the whole thing when the tip was sent in, and I do not subscribe.
My apologies all, I thought I removed the paywall on this post and not sure what happened. Will get is fixed ASAP
Did he ever post a complete build?
C-mount is a big mistake. You cannot get decent lenses at a fair price. M4/3, EF or even E would be a better choice
I got around this issue by using a focal reducer. I’m using pentax pk lenses and m42 lenses on this build