[Igor Carron] pointed out that Derrick Parkhurst and his colleagues at Iowa State have been hard at work improving their lightweight eye tracker that we covered in January. The new version uses digital cameras instead of analog ones. This time they’ve included step by step build instructions instead of just a PDF describing the device. Most of the build involves removing the CCD from a couple cheap webcams and then building an extension back to the board. All of this work is part of the Human and Computer Vision Laboratory’s open-source openEyes project. If you want a quick intro into how this type of eye tracking works I suggest reading our previous post.

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Sorry, this is coming in so late. The last 24 hours have been

[Jussi Saarijoki] had a broken LCD monitor and decided to use it as a photography light instead of letting it sit on his shelf of “oblivion”. Only the panel was broken; the cold cathode and diffuser were still intact. He stripped off all of the outer casing and pulled the broken panel. After reassembling he did a couple test shots. The large panel works really well for providing ambient light and making shadows a lot less harsh.

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[joevennix]’s digital picture frame for Mother’s day is really an update to a previous how-to he wrote. The original shows you how to build a digital photo frame using a Juicebox media player.  His version doesn’t require the MP3 addon (it would make it easier) since he connects the SD card directly to the header. His latest features a much better case and hideaway controls. He admits that he still can’t cut a matte worth a darn.

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So, you’ve got an itching desire to inflate 150 helium balloons, but have no idea what to do with them afterwards? Well, readers Stefan and Michel decided to build a simple aluminum frame to mount a cheap digital camera and do some aerial photography. Instead of building a complex timing system they just attached a strong motor from a security camera. It’s powered by a AA and is geared really low so it only triggers the shutter every 12 seconds. They deployed the rig from the fortifications surrounding Wilemstad in the Netherlands. There are several pictures of the city (and the occasional envious child) on their site. If you follow the “continue reading” link you’ll see a couple more pictures of the camera mount.

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The Holga is a cheap medium format film camera that has achieved cult status for its inconsistent, truly unique photographs featuring blur, light leaks, vignetting, and distortion. Poor quality digital photos aren’t nearly as interesting and [Joachim Guanzon] wanted to achieve the Holga effect without using robotic Photoshop filters. He constructed this lens for his Canon 20D. The base is an EOS body cap with the center drilled out. A tube is constructed from a white film canister and the Holga lens is mounted inside. The tube length increases the usable distance of the camera and the white body lets some light leak in. A lens cap with a 3/16th inch hole is snapped over the top. The hole creates a vignette and since it isn’t permanently attached the pattern will be more random. Check out Joachim’s sample photos.

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I know the camera pictured looks kind of wonky, “They just glued a peephole to a digicam, right?” The fisheye camera guide from Aggregate.org goes much further than that. They’ve tried out the $4 peephole lens on almost every camera in the office and have built dedicated ones using $15 pen cameras. I don’t plan on building one of these, but I did find their guide for removing “dark noise” from images really interesting. Sensor noise can be fairly consistent from shot to shot. So with some smart subtraction of a black frame from an image you can remove noise without blurring the image. They have information on masking and projection conversion as well.

Continue reading “$20 Fisheye Digital Camera” →