Game Boy Camera In Wedding Photo Booth

For those of a certain age the first digital camera many of us experienced was the Game Boy Camera, an add-on for the original Game Boy console. Although it only took pictures with the limited 4-tone monochrome graphics of this system, its capability of being able to take a picture, edit it, create drawings, and then print them out on the Game Boy Printer was revolutionary for the time. Of course the people who grew up with this hardware are about the age to be getting married now (or well beyond), so [Sebastian] capitalized on the nostalgia for it with this wedding photo booth that takes pictures with the Game Boy Camera.

The photo booth features the eponymous Game Boy Camera front-and-center, with a pair of large buttons to allow the wedding guests to start the photography process. The system takes video and then isolates a few still images from it to be printed with the Game Boy Printer. The original Game Boy hardware, as well as a Flask-based web app with a GUI, is all controlled with a Raspberry Pi 4. There’s also a piece of Game Boy hardware called the GB Interceptor that sits between the Game Boy console and the camera cartridge itself which allows the Pi to capture the video feed directly.

The booth doesn’t stop with Game Boy hardware, though. There’s also a modern mirrorless digital camera set up in the booth alongside the Game Boy Camera which allows for higher resolution, full color images to be taken as well. This is also controlled with the same hardware and provides a more modern photo booth experience next to the nostalgic one provided by the Game Boy. There have been many projects which attempt to modernize this hardware, though, like this build which adds color to the original monochrome photos or this one which adds Wi-Fi capability.

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Fusing Cheap EBay Find Into A Digital Rangefinder

One of the earliest commercially-successful camera technologies was the rangefinder — a rather mechanically-complex system that allows a photographer to focus by triangulating a subject, often in a dedicated focusing window, and and frame the shot with another window, all without ever actually looking through the lens. Rangefinder photographers will give you any number of reasons why their camera is just better than the others — it’s faster to use, the focusing is more accurate, the camera is lighter — but in today’s era of lightweight mirrorless digitals, all of these arguments sound like vinyl aficionados saying “The sound is just more round, man. Digital recordings are all square.” (This is being written by somebody who shoots with a rangefinder and listens to vinyl).

While there are loads of analog rangefinders floating around eBay, the trouble nowadays is that digital rangefinders are rare, and all but impossible to find for a reasonable price. Rather than complaining on Reddit after getting fed up with the lack of affordable options, [Mr.50mm] decided to do something about it, and build his own digital rangefinder for less than $250.

Part of the problem is that, aside from a few exceptions, the only digital rangefinders have been manufactured by Leica, a German company often touted as the Holy Grail of photography. Whether you agree with the hype or consider them overrated toys, they’re sure expensive. Even in the used market, you’d be hard-pressed to find an older model for less than $2,000, and the newest models can be upwards of $10,000.

Rather than start from scratch, he fused two low-cost and commonly-available cameras into one with some careful surgery and 3D printing. The digital bits came from a Panasonic GF3, a 12 MP camera that can be had for around $120, and the rangefinder system from an old Soviet camera called the Fed 5, which you can get for less than $50 if you’re lucky. The Fed 5 also conveniently worked with Leica Thread Mount (LTM) lenses, a precursor to the modern bayonet-mount lenses, so [Mr.50mm] lifted the lens mounting hardware from it as well.

Even LTM lenses are relatively cheap, as they’re not compatible with modern Leicas. Anyone who’s dabbled in building or repairing cameras will tell you that there’s loads of precision involved. If the image sensor, or film plane, offset is off by the slightest bit, you’ll never achieve a sharp focus — and that’s just one of many aspects that need to be just right. [Mr.50mm]’s attention to detail really paid off, as the sample images (which you can see in the video below) look fantastic. Continue reading “Fusing Cheap EBay Find Into A Digital Rangefinder”

A Look Through The Eye Of A Bowling Ball

If you are anything like us, last time you went bowling, you thought more about how the ball came back to you than actually knocking down the pin. Perhaps you even wondered what it would be like to be a bowling ball making its way back through mysterious and hidden machines. [Wren] and [Erik Beck] did as well, so they set out to make a bowling ball camera to find out.

At the heart of the contraption is an Insta360 X5 camera nestled between water-jet cut metal plates. Because each lens of the camera has a 200 degree field of view, anything in the overlap of the two lenses simply does not appear, so the two metal plates likewise, do not appear. This does leave a somewhat noticeable seam down the middle of the footage, but overall worked out very well. To prevent vibrations in the bowling ball, it can only be rolled along the plate line, making said seam appear in all the footage. Because the stabilization is happening purely digitally, and the camera itself is spinning with the ball, motion blur became an issue immediately. Fortunately increasing the shutter speed fixed the issue, along with an increase in ISO to compensate for the decreased exposure.

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Digitally-Converted Leica Gets A 64-Megapixel Upgrade

Leica’s film cameras were hugely popular in the 20th century, and remain so with collectors to this day. [Michael Suguitan] has previously had great success converting his classic Leica into a digital one, and now he’s taken the project even further.

[Michael’s] previous work saw him create a so-called “digital back” for the Leica M2. He fitted the classic camera with a Raspberry Pi Zero and a small imaging sensor to effectively turn it into a digital camera, creating what he called the LeicaMPi. Since then, [Michael] has made a range of upgrades to create what he calls the LeicaM2Pi.

The upgrades start with the image sensor. This time around, instead of using a generic Raspberry Pi camera, he’s gone with the fancier ArduCam OwlSight sensor. Boasting a mighty 64 megapixels, it’s still largely compatible with all the same software tools as the first-party cameras, making it both capable and easy to use. With a  crop factor of 3.7x, the camera’s Voigtlander 12mm lens has a much more useful field of view.

Unlike [Michael’s] previous setup, there was also no need to remove the camera’s IR filter to clear the shutter mechanism. This means the new camera is capable of taking natural color photos during the day.  [Michael] also added a flash this time around, controlled by the GPIOs of the Raspberry Pi Zero. The camera also features a much tidier onboard battery via the PiSugar module, which can be easily recharged with a USB-C cable.

If you’ve ever thought about converting an old-school film camera into a digital shooter, [Michael’s] work might serve as a great jumping off point. We’ve seen it done with DSLRs, before, too! Video after the break.

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Tearing Down And Hacking The T2S+ Thermal Camera

[Dmytro] was able to lay his hands on a InfiRay T2S+ camera. It’s a capable thermal imaging unit that comes at a cheaper price than many of its rivals. [Dmytro] decided to pull it apart to see what makes it tick, and he discovered a few interesting things along the way.

Like so much modern hardware, pulling the case apart does require some spudging and levering. Once inside, though, it comes apart in a relatively straightforward manner. Once inside, [Dmytro] notes some similarities between this camera and the Flir Lepton, another affordable thermal camera on the market. He also finds a clone of the Cypress FX2LP chip, which is used for talking USB. There’s also an Gowin FPGA inside, with [Dmytro] suspecting the gateware onboard could be modified. If so, the camera may be a candidate for running open source firmware in future.

What bothered [Dmytro] about this camera, though, was the software. When used with an Android phone, the camera demands the use of a proprietary app with with questionable permissions. It can be used on a regular computer, where it appears as a standard webcam. However, in this mode, the camera fails to self-calibrate, and the images quickly become useless. [Dmytro] worked to hack around this, by figuring out a way to trigger calibrations and run the proper image corrections manually when using the camera without the smartphone app. He also explores techniques to improve the resolution of the thermal measurements made by the camera.

We’ve seen some other neat thermal camera hacks over the years. Video after the break.

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Hack Aims For Polaroid, Hits Game Boy Camera Sweet Spot

There’s just some joy in an instant camera. They were never quality cameras, even in the glory days of Polaroid, but somehow the format has survived while the likes of Kodachrome have faded away. [Mellow_Labs] decided he wanted the instacam experience without the Polaroid pricing, so he made his own in the video embedded after the break.

He says “Polaroid’ but we see Game Boy.

At its core, it’s a simple project: an ESP32-CAM for the image (these were never great cameras, remember, so ESP32 is fine– and do you really get to call it an instant camera if you have to wait for a Raspberry Pi to boot up?) and a serial thermal printer for the “instant photo”part. This admittedly limits the project to black and white, and pretty low res, but B/W is artistic and Lo-Fi is hip, so this probably gives the [Mellow Labs] camera street cred with the kids, somehow. Honestly, this reminds us more of the old Gameboy Camera and its printer than anything made by Polaroid, and we are here for it.

The build video goes through the challenges [Mellow Labs] found interfacing the serial printer to the ESP32–which went surprisingly well for what looks like mostly vibe coding, though we’re not sure how much time he spent fixing the vibe code off camera–as well as a the adventure of providing a case that includes the most absurdly beefy battery we’ve ever seen on a camera. Check out the full video below.

Instant cameras are no stranger to Hackaday: this one used e-ink; this one uses film, but is made of gingerbread. In 2022 we wondered if we’d ever shake the Polaroid picture, and the answer appears to be “no” so far.

Thanks to [Mellow] for tooting his own horn by submitting this project to the tip line. We love to see what our readers get up to, so please– toot away!

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Prusa Mini with endoscope nozzle cam and pip preview

Prusa Mini Nozzle Cam On The Cheap

Let me throw in a curveball—watching your 3D print fail in real-time is so much more satisfying when you have a crisp, up-close view of the nozzle drama. That’s exactly what [Mellow Labs] delivers in his latest DIY video: transforming a generic HD endoscope camera into a purpose-built nozzle cam for the Prusa Mini. The hack blends absurd simplicity with delightful nerdy precision, and comes with a full walkthrough, a printable mount, and just enough bad advice to make it interesting. It’s a must-see for any maker who enjoys solder fumes with their spaghetti monsters.

What makes this build uniquely brilliant is the repurposing of a common USB endoscope camera—a tool normally reserved for inspecting pipes or internal combustion engines. Instead, it’s now spying on molten plastic. The camera gets ripped from its aluminium tomb, upgraded with custom-salvaged LEDs (harvested straight from a dismembered bulb), then wrapped in makeshift heat-shrink and mounted on a custom PETG bracket. [Mellow Labs] even micro-solders in a custom connector just so the camera can be detached post-print. The mount is parametric, thanks to a community contribution.

This is exactly the sort of hacking to love—clever, scrappy, informative, and full of personality. For the tinkerers among us who like their camera mounts hot and their resistor math hotter, this build is a weekend well spent.

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