Nex3 nice choice, if your was anything like mine the buttons are mushy and should be somewhere else, reusing the jog dial maybe a idea, glue the shutter dial to it and keep your navigation and dial, then its just the enter/center to find a way through, i think your going to need another film body to borrow parts off relatively soon.
Nice work, intersting the nex works without a lot of its stuff connected, im trying not to be precious about the Canon body . Lol. ,I did a zenit digital conversion in 2012 , relocated all the buttons, wouldn't want to do it again ,of a tiny point n shoot , made a mini speed booster to counter the tiny sensor, its kinda unstable runs on aa batteries and is painted florescent pink. its on instructables . As the olympic zenit digital or something like that.
It is a great project and I totally admire your patience and perseverance. The biggest problem, as I see it, is that the design is 'one-off' and applicable to only 1 camera. I'm looking forward to when someone actually invents a system where the whole thing will be like a film canister and film strip that lays in the existing film canister cavities and film track, and can be width adjusted for any 35mm camera in which it is installed. To me, the camera could still handle the shutter and aperture and the digital 'film' system would need a sensitivity adjustment method (perhaps running off the film take up spool). I could see micro sd card being housed in the film canister along with whatever other electronics are required. The sensor would be the big challenge since it would likely need to be a full 35mm for all the enthusiasts to be happy, although DX or m4/3 I guess could work but not please the 'pro-minded'. I know there are supposed developments in this already ...like "I'm Back" but just get the uneasy feeling that they are more of a grift to separate enthusiasts from their money, but perhaps I'm just too paranoid. Hopefully somebody will make something that works and make a fortune marketing it through legitimate sales channels, while those of us with old film gear still have an interest. I'm sure if something that works is developed, it will sell, because the cost of film and developing is absolutely prohibitive, so shooting with old film gear is reserved for very special occasions. I'm sure if a few engineers put their minds to it a 'Digital Film Insert' could be manufactured which could be installed and removed, thereby offering the user the opportunity of shooting film or shooting digital.
Just make a custom adapter for a nex-5 or whatever, a lot easier and works a lot better. Doesn't look as cool but if you want that just get an old Fuji digital.
I'm pretty sure that everyone who wants to do this sort of "converting an old film camera to digital" project (at least) initially severely underestimates the complexity of the challenge which they have set for themselves. That was a pretty good reason why Epson converting Cosina rangefinder cameras resulted in a niche product (the Epson RD1 and variants), due to its high price. Perhaps drilling a hole in the back, coinciding with the status LED and gluing-in a plug of clear plastic to act as a light-pipe, would solve the problem without soldering?
man, photos are the fun :D especially colors are not to grasp from your map-photos. i really like the project, so much effort, but please, show some test-shots ::)
hello! awesome video! i saw a video in youtube similar a year ago or so where someone frankinized some digital cam on the back of a rollei 35. i have always thought if doing something similar. i purchased a couple of fully functional panasonic/lumix dmc fs6eg for under $10 USD and i have a couple of ebay purchases of old rangefinder cameras that were advertised as fully functional and turned out to be almost inoperable (one example would be an inoperable fujica 35-EE). one idea i had for you, about your led ... i have seen small clear plastic cylinders used to extend an led light to a display panel. perhaps you could use a concept like that to avoid soldering a longer/larger led ... just a thought. well thanks for your video really enjoyed it and cant wait to watch more in the series cheers the Rabbit. =:3
Love the concept! The Canon P is an excellent rangefinder camera and looks killer too. I just missed some footage of you using the camera and definitely photos of cat with beautiful blurry background. Joke, but some more example photos would be greatly appreciated. :)
Oh yeah, I killed the previous working iteration so there’s only engineering for now. I have to buy a second one so I can make videos of how it works. There’s a lot of videos I’ve planned, I just need a functional camera first.
I keep thinking it wouldn’t work well because the lever is too long so there would be too much force so it wouldn’t stay in place as a reliable on off switch. But I did tell someone else in a comment that I’ll give it a go. So yeah, I’ll give it a go, maybe I’ll add a second spring to hold it in place stronger.
Really carefully! The longer answer is that I tried 3d printing my own sensor spacers at home but that was mostly a flop… So now with the nylon print I am about to do I’ll get some accurate spacers made too
this project is incredible, im considering attempting a similar retrofit on a yashica electro, though perhaps a dumbed down raspberry pi approach with smaller sensor. i'm very impressed with your fitting of an apsc sensor into this body
I’d love to have something based on a raspberry pi zero because it’s so small and a load of neat things could be done. The big drawback is that you’d have trouble to use the tiny sensor with its 5x magnification for meaningful photography. Unless the original “lens” is hiding an actual lens meant for the raspberry pi sensor within. But then you’d lose the rangefinder..
Seeing that APSC sensor with "NEX" written on it being dropped into a jar full of cornflour and shaken was the hardest thing I've seen in a long while :') Thanks for sharing your progress!
Thanks for watching! If I become successful in this I’ll hopefully get to ruin even more expensive cameras. That NEX was £25 I think, so I can only go up. Can’t make an omelette without cracking some eggs after all!
This project is super cool. Been thinking about a project like this using a Pentacon Six as a base, the biggest issue would be... affording something like a GFX50R for the guts of the thing
You could try with a Leaf/Mamiya back, those aren’t that expensive now (although a lot of them have problems, so you need to choose well). Still, I think that one should begin with a cheaper project, like Ernestas, and then move on to such a serious endeavor… the one good thing is that you’ll have *tons* of space inside the Pentacon Six body 😬
