After the release of the new camera module for the Raspberry Pi with the option of using interchangeable lenses, some users started creating their own digital cameras. But this user has gone a step further and has achieved convert an analog camera to digital with a Raspberry Pi Zero W.
Copying Hasselblad and its V system
If you like photography and you are particularly interested in analog photography, you will know that old lenses and the use of film achieve a very different look from what digital cameras are capable of offering today. Although later filters are even used to achieve certain similar looks.
On top of that, the charm of an analog camera from 50 years ago is hardly present in a current one, let alone a mobile phone. Therefore, without detracting from the photographic devices that currently exist, quite the contrary, what this user has done using a Raspberry Pi is very interesting for any photography lover.
He has copied, so to speak, the idea of the Hasselblad V-system which allows lenses older than sixty years to be used with a digital backing like the one seen on the Hasselblad 907X. Of course, in its own way and creating a film reel that really integrates a 5 megapixel sensor.
From analog to digital
To carry out this process of converting an analog camera into a digital one, this user had to resort to a Raspberry Pi Zero W, a 5MP sensor and a kind of casing or adapter in the form of analog film that would be the one that would allow everything to be placed in a Cosina camera as if it were a photo roll.
In this adapter there is not only the Rasbperri Pi and the sensor, but also a lithium battery that is in charge of supplying the necessary power for its operation. Then, since the board used has a WiFi connection, the images that are captured can be sent over the Internet. What's more, the camera control itself is done remotely.
So what this user is doing or managed to do was adapt old analog camera to be used as a housing and adapter for that lens I had. So with a little more work you could even get something much more elaborate, with its own trigger and more creative possibilities.
Likewise, the project carried out is frankly striking and surely more than one fan of photography, with analog cameras at home, is already thinking about how to access all this code and list of necessary elements to do something similar.
Well, these are basically the elements used:
- Raspberry Pi Zero W
- Camera module without the lens, so that the sensor is exposed
- LiPo Battery
- Converter to increase the current to +5V
- analog camera
- CAD file for the adapted "reel"
With all that and a little patience you could convert your own analog camera to digital.