[ash] wasn’t satisfied with these instructions, so he provided a complete how-to on gutting a Rebel XT to remove the glass IR filter. This one involves pulling everything down to the CCD. Once the IR glass is removed, it’s replaced with some high grade glass from Edmund Optics. If you’re into camera modding at all, and own a Digital Rebel, the reference links at the end of the how-to are worth a read.
Adding A Digital Back To A Sweet Old Camera
[Eugene] wanted to use his vintage Leica M4 as a digital camera, and he had a Canon EOS 350D digital camera sitting around unused. So he Frankensteined them together and added a digital back to the Leica’s optical frontend.
It sounds simple, right? All you’d need to do is chop off the back from the EOS 350D, grind the digital sensor unit down to fit into exactly the right spot on the film plane, glue it onto an extra Leica M4 back door, and you’re set. Just a little bit of extremely precise hackery. But it’s not even that simple.
Along the way [Eugene] reverse-engineered the EOS 350D’s shutter and mirror box signals (using a Salae Logic probe), and then replicated these signals when the Leica shutter was tripped by wedging an Arduino MiniPro into an old Leica motor-winder case. The Arduino listens for the Leica’s bulb-flash signal to tell when the camera fires, and then sends along the right codes to the EOS back. Sweet.
There are still a few outstanding details. The shutter speed is limited by the latency in getting the signal from the Leica to the 350D back, so he’s stuck at shutter speeds longer than 1/8th of a second. Additionally, the Canon’s anti-IR filter didn’t fit, but he has a new one ordered. These quibbles aside, it’s a beautiful hack so far.
What makes a beautiful piece of work even more beautiful? Sharing the source code and schematics. They’re both available at his Github.
Of course, if you don’t mind completely gutting the camera, you could always convert your old Leica into a point and shoot.
Pool-playing Robot + ARpool
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AENJxqR0g48]
Enjoy losing at pool? Well the folks at Queen’s University just made it a whole lot easier. The Deep Green robot was created with the purpose of playing a flawless game, allowing it to beat even the most skilled human players. More than a couple of research papers have been written on the project. A ceiling-mounted Canon 350D tracks the position of all of the balls, in addition to another cue-mounted cam (for higher shot accuracy). Using a bunch of calculations, and a computer (probably more advanced than an Arduino), the Deep Green is able to strategize and play. Very well.
On a positive note, another team from Queens is working on a seperate but related project: ARpool (as in augmented reality). It was created to make playing pool easier. The website does not provide much info, but it seems to project different moves onto the pool table, allowing an inexperienced player to tell whether a shot is at all possible.
Canon Fd To Eos Inifinity Focus
Adapters to mount older fd mount canon lenses onto the newer eos cameras have been around for a while. There are some problems to solve. Because of the focal length, the fd lens could no longer focus to inifity and lose brightness(an f-stop). Rodolfo Novak modded his canon 55mm f1.2 fd lens for the eos mount by removing some vital parts(the attachment ring and the aperture ring). ?Now that the lens was closer, both infinite focus and the f-stop are back. He’s a bit short on the details, but it becomes clear if you look at an unmodified lens. Of course, to get the focus indicator working on a digital eos like my 350d, you need to add an af lens emulator circuit. If you don’t care about infinite focus, you could go a less invasive adapter.
Hackaday Links
First a request: I know some of you have had some experience hacking together Greasemonkey scripts. Jim Hanas over at Hanasiana has a quick project he needs help with. Go ask him for the details.
The Nano cases keep rolling in: Here is [Atonomie]’s leather Nano case. Use the template to get a head start on your own case.
More CSS/Javascript/Ajax fun:
CSS/Javascript chat room [wtanaka]
Custom Ajax homepage [Andrew]
[ondras]’s universal SQL & er-diagram designer
[Biggs] built a remote shutter release for his 350D out of a mouse.
Custom Slim Devices control boxes by [chrisla]
[colin]’s super cheap laptop cooler
A ton of laptop photo frames [rob]
[eitan]’s Zen Micro Altoids case
Magnetic levitation demonstrator
[Jonathan Zornow]’s guide for abusing iDVD
Cheat sheet for getting a human operator [hazar via In4mador]
