digital cameras hacks

731 Articles

That Retro Video Look, Without The Tapes

March 7, 2020 by 9 Comments

We’re lucky to live in an age of rapid technological advancement, lucky in more ways than one because as well as receiving a constant supply of new things, we have the benefit of the older tech that once we lusted over, at knock-down prices. [Luke Baker] spent his youth as a skateboarder, and the cameras of desire in that community were the high-end MiniDV models. They may not have high definition but their output has a Millennial aesthetic that captures the period, so he’s brought one into the 2020s by adding a digital SD card recorder designed for a multirotor to it.

On the face of it this is a pretty straightforward job of coupling an off-the-shelf recorder to a battery and the camera’s analogue output terminals. But the resulting spaghetti on what is supposed to be a portable device is hardly attractive, so he’s created an all-in-one 3D-printed enclosure that is attached to the camera’s handle with a set of cable ties. It’s shaped to fit the recorder and has a sliding lid over the battery compartment, and he’s added a handy on-off switch. Whether or not he takes it to the skate park in a bid to roll back the decades, as you can see int he video below the break it’s a well-executed piece of work that should serve to remind that there’s still life in some of this easily-available old tech if you’re prepared for a bit of lateral thinking.

This isn’t the first vintage video hack we’ve seen, back in 2016 we were treated to the grainy period feel of a vintage 8mm camera through the eye of a Raspberry Pi.

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Camera And Code Team Up To Make Impossible Hovering Laser Effect

March 5, 2020 by 18 Comments

Right off the bat, we’ll say that this video showing a laser beam stopping in mid-air is nothing but a camera trick. But it’s the trick that’s the hack, and you’ve got to admit that it looks really cool.

It starts with the [Tom Scott] video, the first one after the break. [Tom] is great at presenting fascinating topics in a polished and engaging way, and he certainly does that here. In a darkened room, a begoggled [Tom] poses with what appears to be a slow-moving beam of light, similar to a million sci-fi movies where laser weapons always seem to disregard the laws of physics. He even manages to pull a [Kylo Ren] on the slo-mo photons with a “Force Stop” as well as a slightly awkward Matrix-style bullet-time shot.  It’s entertaining stuff, and the effect is all courtesy of the rolling shutter effect. The laser beam is rapidly modulated in sync with the camera’s shutter, and with the camera turned 90 degrees, the effect is to slow down or even stop the beam.

The tricky part of the hack is the laser stuff, which is the handiwork of [Seb Lee-Delisle]. The second video below goes into detail on his end of the effect. We’ve seen [Seb]’s work before, with a giant laser Asteroids game and a trick NES laser blaster that rivals this effect.

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A Minimal ESP8266 Digital Picture Frame

March 1, 2020 by 2 Comments

Over the last few years, the price of a good digital picture frame has dropped to the point that we don’t often see DIY versions anymore. As much as we might hate to admit it, it’s hard to justify building something yourself when the economies of scale have made it so you can buy the final product for less than the cost of the parts themselves. But of course, there are always fringe cases where building it might be the only way to get what you need.

Granted we’re not sure that [Tony Liu] actually needs a 1.8-inch digital picture frame, but we’re sure somebody out there does. The ST7735R display used in this project is a real TFT, so the color and refresh rate is pretty good; but with a resolution of just 128×160, we’d recommend keeping your expectations low in regards to visual fidelity.

What’s really interesting about this project is how low the part count is. All you need is the ST7735R display and the ESP8266 itself (or the development board of your choice, naturally). Even the 3D printed frame is technically optional. The display is driven by SPI, so with the power added in, that’s only eight wires that need to be soldered between the two devices. If you’re looking for an easy way to add a photo slideshow to a small device, say a conference badge, this is about as easy as it gets.

But where are the images coming from? You might think SPIFFS, but in this case [Tony] has converted the images to bitmaps and is loading them into the Arduino Sketch as a header file with PROGMEM. Helpfully, he provides the link for the tool he uses to convert the images into an array the graphics library can understand. This makes adding new images slightly time consuming, but we imagine if you have the need for something like this, it’s probably only showing a pretty specific set of images anyway.

If you’re looking for something bigger, or maybe just an excuse to put that dusty Raspberry Pi to use, you might be interested in one of the more substantial builds we’ve seen over the years.

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Building Cameras For The Immersive Future

February 28, 2020 by 6 Comments

Thus far, the vast majority of human photographic output has been two-dimensional. 3D displays have come and gone in various forms over the years, but as technology progresses, we’re beginning to see more and more immersive display technologies. Of course, to use these displays requires content, and capturing that content in three dimensions requires special tools and techniques. Kim Pimmel came down to Hackaday Superconference to give us a talk on the current state of the art in advanced AR and VR camera technologies.

[Kim]’s interest in light painting techniques explored volumetric as well as 2D concepts.
Kim has plenty of experience with advanced displays, with an impressive resume in the field. Having worked on Microsoft’s Holo Lens, he now leads Adobe’s Aero project, an AR app aimed at creatives. Kim’s journey began at a young age, first experimenting with his family’s Yashica 35mm camera, where he discovered a love for capturing images. Over the years, he experimented with a wide variety of gear, receiving a Canon DSLR from his wife as a gift, and later tinkering with the Stereorealist 35mm 3D camera. The latter led to Kim’s growing obsession with three-dimensional capture techniques.

Through his work in the field of AR and VR displays, Kim became familiar with the combination of the Ricoh Theta S 360 degree camera and the Oculus Rift headset. This allowed users to essentially sit inside a photo sphere, and see the image around them in three dimensions. While this was compelling, [Kim] noted that a lot of 360 degree content has issues with framing. There’s no way to guide the observer towards the part of the image you want them to see.

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OpenAstroTracker Turns Your DSLR Into An Astronomy Instrument

February 25, 2020 by 30 Comments

If you want to take beautiful night sky pictures with your DSLR and you live between 15 degrees and 55 degrees north latitude you might want to check out OpenAstroTracker. If you have a 3D printer it will probably take about 60 hours of printing, but you’ll wind up with a pretty impressive setup for your camera. There’s an Arduino managing the tracking and also providing a “go to” capability.

The design is over on Thingiverse and you can find code on GitHub. There’s also a Reddit dedicated to the project. The tracker touts its ability to handle long or heavy lenses and to target 180 degrees in every direction.

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Bluetooth Intervalometer Makes Time Lapses Easy

February 21, 2020 by 5 Comments

Taking timelapses is a fun pastime of many a photographer. While most modern cameras have some features to pull this off, if you want to get really into it, you’ll want an intervalometer to run the show. Chasing just that, [Zach] decided that rather than buying off-the-shelf, a DIY build was in order.

The build relies on an Arduino Nano to run the show, in combination with the popular HC-05 Bluetooth module. The Bluetooth module allows the device to communicate with a smartphone app which [Zach] created using RoboRemo. This is a platform that makes creating custom USB, WiFI and Bluetooth apps easy for beginners. The app sends instructions to the intervalometer regarding the number of photos to take, and the time to wait between each shot. Then, it triggers the time lapse, and the Arduino triggers the camera by shorting the relevant pins on a TRS plug inserted into the camera.

It’s a straightforward build that most hackers could probably complete with parts from the junk box. Plus, building your own offers the possibility of customising it exactly to your needs. Of course, you can eschew modernity and do things mechanically instead. Video after the break.

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A Cheap And Easy GoPro Mount For Model Rocketry

February 16, 2020 by No comments

Launching model rockets is fun, but the real meat of the hobby lies in what you do next. Some choose to instrument their rockets or carry other advanced payloads. [seamster] likes to film his flights, and built a nosecone camera package to do so. 

A GoPro is the camera of choice for [seamster]’s missions, with its action cam design making it easy to fire off with a single press of a button. To mount it on the rocket, the nosecone was designed in several sections. The top and bottom pieces are 3D printed, which are matched with a clear plastic cylinder cut from a soda bottle. Inside the cylinder, the GoPro and altimeter hardware are held in place with foam blocks, cut to shape from old floor mats. The rocket’s parachute is attached to the top of the nose cone, which allows the camera to hang in the correct orientation on both the ascent and descent phases of the flight. Check out the high-flying videos created with this setup after the break.

It’s a simple design that [seamster] was able to whip up in Tinkercad in just a few hours, and one that’s easily replicable by the average maker at home. Getting your feet wet with filming your flights has never been easier – we’ve certainly come a long way from shooting on film in the 1970s.

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