digital cameras hacks

956 Articles

Digital Camera LCD Replacement

September 8, 2009 by 11 Comments

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Turning on your camera to this kind of black blotch will ruin your day. Cracked LCD screens have got to be the biggest digital camera killer out there. Although you can still take pictures with it, a non-functioning screen makes it difficult if not impossible to change settings and take decent photos.

[myles_h] has document the process of replacing a broken screen in his digital camera. As professional repair usually costs more than a brand new camera you’ll want to do this yourself. New screens can be purchased online, but we’ve also considered buying the same model of camera from ebay (screen intact but broken in a different way). This model, a Sony Cybershot DSC-W50, has fairly easy access to the LCD and its connection to the logic board. Before buying parts, you may want to investigate how much disassembly your camera will require.

Open Source Digital Camera

September 6, 2009 by 25 Comments

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Those brainy folks over at Stanford are working on an open source digital camera. This is an effort to advance what they call “computational photography”. Basically they’re looking to combine some of the functionality of Photoshop or Gimp right into the camera. One example they discuss is utilizing an algorithm to even out the light levels from one side of the picture to the other. Another trick they’ve already accomplished in the lab is increasing the resolution of full motion video. They take a full resolution photo once every few frames and use the computing power of the camera to incorporate that information into the low-res frames around it.

We like the idea of being able to get at the firmware that runs on our digital cameras. Going with open source would certainly provide that access, but cost will be an issue. The Stanford team hopes to produce a model of what they now call Frankencamera that sells for “less than $1000”.

[via crave]

Toyaanisqatsi: Time Lapse Control Using LEGO Parts

September 6, 2009 by 4 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm1fFQfGc9M&feature=player_embedded]
A simple panning motion can add impact to the already-dramatic effect of time lapse photography. To accomplish this, frugal cinematographers sometimes build [Rube Goldberg] contraptions from clock motors, VCR parts or telescope tracking mounts. Hack a Day reader [Stephan Martin] has assembled a clever bargain-basement system using an Arduino-driven stepper motor and a reduction gear system built up from LEGO Technic parts, along with some Processing code on a host PC to direct the show.

While the photography is a bit crude (using just a webcam), [Stephan’s] underlying motion control setup might interest budding filmmakers with [Ron Fricke] aspirations but Top Ramen budgets. What’s more, unlike rigid clock motor approaches, software control of the camera mount has the potential for some interesting non-linear, fluid movements.

Ruggedize Your Not-so-rugged Portables

August 25, 2009 by 13 Comments

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Popular Mechanics has a detailed how-to on diy ruggedization of common portable electronics such as laptops, cameras, and cellphones. There is video of a laptop surviving an eight foot fall due to the tennis balls, pipe insulation, and weather stripping they’ve added. Its not just shock resistant, they’ve used a two-part compound marketed for making custom molded earplugs to make the laptop water resistant.

Making A Tilt-shift Lens

July 28, 2009 by 15 Comments

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[Bhautik] is on version 2 of his tilt-shift lens, and wrote in to share what he has learned. Some aspects of the design on version 1 made it a bit quirky to use. You had to hold the lens in place, manually adjusting the focus. This meant that no two shots were the same. Since [Bhautik] wanted to do time lapse with it, he needed to re design it. He kept it simple and cheap, around $22 total.  Version two takes a lot longer to setup for the shot, but the result is reproducible. This means he can make his tilt-shift time lapse videos.

Scanner Sensor Multi Touch

July 27, 2009 by 28 Comments

[vimeo= http://vimeo.com/5765795]

[Kyle McDonald] had a Visioneer XP 100 portable scanner laying around, so he started trying to come up with alternative uses for it. In the video above, we can see a multitouch setup rigged together using Openframeworks in Ubuntu. As you can see in the video, there’s some considerable lag. That is due to the 250-500 ms of buffering built into the scanner. It does have nice resolution; 10k pixels wide at 60 fps, so it has to be useful for something (aside from scanning). Anyone got any ideas? He says if the field of view was wider, he’d use it on a river bed to watch fish.

Camera Peltier Cooler

July 23, 2009 by 36 Comments

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[Gary Honis] has been modifying his Canon Digital Rebel XSi in order to do astrophotography. He previously removed the IR filter and replaced it with a Baader UV-IR cut filter that lets most infrared light through. However, in order to reduce noise in the pictures, he had to cool the camera down. He based the project on a peltier cooler that he salvaged from a powered beverage cooler. He made a small aluminum box and insulated it with styrofoam to hold the camera body. The peltier cooler was then attached on the side. It takes just over an hour to cool the camera down to 40 degrees, but the shots come out a lot clearer.

[thanks adam]