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Game Boy Camera Canon EF Lens Mount (2018)
- paco3346 4y agoThis is absurdly ridiculous, I love it. Despite the low resolution, bit depth, lack of color, and dithering, I like how using a better lens can make the seagull picture somewhat aesthetically pleasing.
- semi-extrinsic 4y agoOf course the better lens in this case has really narrow depth of field, so you get a very smooth background in basically all situations. This helps a lot. I can't help but wonder how these would look if the GameBoy Camera had a better dithering algorithm...
- aspyct 4y agoNot sure how narrow the depth of field would be with the 1.4x extender and the tiny little sensors though.
- semi-extrinsic 4y agoIt's going to be super narrow still. I tried punching this in on an online DoF calculator which has 1/4" sensors, but it only goes to 1200mm@F/45[gameboy], which is the equivalent of the 70mm@F/4[fullframe] end of this lens. Even then, focusing at something 40 ft away you have a 0.2 ft depth of field, so a background 10 ft behind your subject will be pure blur.
- aspyct 4y agoThat doesn't seem right. Out of focus blur is a function of focal length and aperture. The sensor size only dictates the crop. In this case, the lens widest setting with a 1.4 extender is 98mm @ f/4. On a full frame sensor, something 10ft behind a in-focus 40ft away thing would still be very recognisable. Since a crop sensor is just a crop, I don't think it would have a different effect. The 1200mm focal length equivalent only applies to the fov radius, not to the blurriness. What's your definition of "pure blur" then?
- als0 4y agoThis is exactly why I come to Hacker News.
- daguava 4y agoSo, the really cool part of this is the raw sensor used, I believe, supports up to 256 levels of brightness (I could be wrong on this, been a long time since I read some hacking articles), but the GB Camera itself limits it down to several because of display limitations! This camera and sensor was so ahead of its time that it blows my mind!
- philliphaydon 4y agoI was looking at the photos and was thinking how it really kinda is it’s own type of photography art. They are so simple but pleasing to look at.
- rawbot 4y agoThis is amazing. I loved the Gameboy Camera back when it came out.
- leobg 4y agoI’d love an EF lens mount for my iPhone!
- TomVDB 4y agoThey exist!
- prmoustache 4y agoI would say to be totally correct those are more smartphone mounts for EF lens given the weight and rigidity difference.
- samatman 4y agoLenses being much larger than the camera body they mount to is nothing new.
- ISL 4y agoLooking at them, it appears that the EF adapters go through optical gymnastics that don't really work the same way as in the Game Boy adaptation. The EF-iPhone adapters project the lens' image onto ground glass and then use a macro lens to image that ground glass. The Game Boy modification actually involves removing the optics from the Game Boy camera and projecting the EF-lens' image directly onto the sensor. There's no easy way to do this with an iPhone, but it is the way that would truly allow you to use the EF lens on the iPhone sensor.
- voigt 4y agoIs there any good smartphone app that emulates the Gameboy Camera? So far I found only some that promise but do not deliver...
- gambiting 4y agoI think it's very hard to achieve for the same reason why almost no black and white filter can reproduce a photo taken with an actual black and white film - you can get really close but something is always missing. It's not enough to apply a GB-like filter to a modern smartphone photo - you'd need to take into account the unique limitations of the GB camera and somehow reproduce them.
- wonderbore 4y agoI don’t think it’s very hard, I just think not enough people care enough about getting an equivalent result. Basically 80/20, but no one will pay for that 20 (yet)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- treesknees 4y agoOn the topic of emulating old hardware, this reminds me of the Nintendo 64 VRU accessory, which is a mic + voice recognition that was used in games such as Hey You Pikachu. Nobody has emulated the hardware which performed the actual voice recognition, instead opting for modern VR libraries. So while you can use it in an emulator, the performed VR won't match what you'd get with the limited hardware implementation. >This is an HLE implementation. I did not emulate the manner in which the VRU does voice recognition https://github.com/mupen64plus/mupen64plus-core/pull/873 https://github.com/mupen64plus/mupen64plus-core/pull/873
- ngcc_hk 4y agoI suspect it is because of hardware limitation. The silver base one actually have multiple layers, not just one thin silicon light receptor layer. That depth and the randomness of the silver particles make the result very difficult to emulate. Perhaps if one can use those staggering focus???
- moron4hire 4y agoYou know, I've been a photographer for probably 20 years now, and phrases like "creamy bokeh" still make my skin crawl.
- HidyBush 4y agodamn, that æsthetic is pristine. those pics almost look like handmade pixel art
- ravenstine 4y agoThat is just cool! If the author releases an STL, I might actually buy a Gameboy camera just to try it out! Lost my original one but I've still got my Gameboy and other stuff. The thing I loved about Nintendo back then was how they did little things that overloaded the original intent of their devices. The printer is probably the best example, but the camera is a great one too. There was just something magical about that. Same goes for initially owning a Nintendo 64 then getting the Rumble Pak, plugging it in, and suddenly adding a whole new dimension to the game. Those days are long gone, for better and for worse. Nobody would want or even need such devices because they'd either be built right in or just be a part of the household, as would be the case of a printer. But even though everyone knew the Gameboy' screen was really crappy for the purpose, there was just something novel about turning it into a camera. It's an experience of its time that I'm not sure will be recreated any time soon.
- kwatsonafter 4y agoYou might be interested in the design philosophy of Yokoi Gunpei who was the original creator of the GameBoy as well as the Love Tester and other pre-Famicom Nintendo, "toys" from the 70's. He called the design philosophy he utilized, "lateral use of withered technologies" and, I can't agree with you enough about the, "magic" of the those peripherals from 90's and early 2000's; I think the design philosophy drives some of the magic. It's all very coherent and functional. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi
- quirino 4y agoVery interesting concept, really liked this bit: > In the handheld market, Yokoi's refusal to adopt a color display for the Game Boy in favor of long battery life is cited as the main reason it prevailed against Sega's Game Gear and Atari's Lynx.
- formerkrogemp 4y agoOk, making elaborate attachments for the game boy advance is becoming deliciously ridiculous. This is awesome. I can't wait to see similar modifications made to the steam deck.
- _Microft 4y agoDiscussion in 2018, 30 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17217827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17217827
- sircastor 4y agoThe GameBoy camera and accompanying rom remind that in spite of outward appearance, the GameBoy is still just a computer. And game consoles in the 80s (especially the early 80s) we’re straddling being a computer vs being an entertainment appliance. Nintendo very aggressively knew what it wanted it’s products to be by the time of its North America release.
- dukeofdoom 4y agoIf this made color images, it would almost be useful for making game assets for pixel art based games. A camera that processes and spits out pixel art like images would be awesome.
- smcl 4y agoYou could approximate this by taking a picture as normal, then resizing and applying some dithering I think. There was a nice article submitted to HN recently on this: https://surma.dev/things/ditherpunk/ https://surma.dev/things/ditherpunk/
- 1-6 4y agoWhy?
- evan_ 4y agoBecause.
- ge96 4y agoI feel the same gut reaction when I see projects like a cyber deck, or people building old pentium computers but I also do the same thing, I seem to keep rehashing things (variation of a note taking app). Only thing I can think of is the joy of doing it. Expanding further, it's easy nowadays to get a pi and attach some HDMI screen to it and battery source. Gets the job done, do I need to personally write a graphics driver for it to be impressive idk. In the long run I am trying to learn harder things though so my skills are not commoditized.
- maccard 4y agoThis is the second post today I've seen here that is a complete and utter waste of time and effort, and I love them both. People make things for the joy of it. Constraints breed innovation and creativity - this is a perfect example of someone doing something stupid purely for the joy of doing it and it's wonderful.
- smcl 4y agoI think it's funny that the most upvoted comment[0] and the lowest comment both acknowledge that this is a ridiculous project [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31596036 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31596036
- bogwog 4y agoFound my new lock screen: https://imgur.com/a/ABecAFx https://imgur.com/a/ABecAFx
- manchmalscott 4y agoAaand I’ve stolen that for my lock screen, thank you very much :)
- lippel82 4y agoThis is now my lock screen as well. Thank you very much!
- sydthrowaway 4y agoAnother reason to gain godly CAD skills
- babblingfish 4y agoLove this. Anyone know the shutter and iso settings on the gameboy camera?
- giomasce 4y agoFew things give the pure joy that this kind of useless stuff does.
- asddubs 4y agoused to love this kind of stuff, but to be honest, youtube clickbait has kind of sucked the joy out of most intentionally ridiculous projects for me, by sheer oversaturation, or maybe just because a lot of it seems kind of insincere these days, whatever that even means. Still, this one I found to be pretty cool and it did put a smile on my face
- kinduff 4y agoThis is impressive and I love it. Love this type of content where "old" or different hardware is augmented in a hacky way.
- upupandup 4y agoThis reminds me...there used to be a sonar attachment for Game Boy color that tells you what type of fish are in the waters. Can't recall the name was released only in Japan to my knowledge. Still have fond memories of Game Boy Camera. Really interesting to see the modding scene still strong, been thinking of upgrading my gameboy color with a new large screen IPS with Bung Enterprises flash. Lots of interesting and neat stuff on the Game Boy Color, there's wifi mods, etc
- layer8 4y agoBandai Fish Finder Pocket Sonar: https://youtu.be/5mHSHmk_UU4 https://youtu.be/5mHSHmk_UU4
- upupandup 4y agoyes this is it! Still remember reading about it in Tips & Tricks magazine in the 90s and being amazed by it.
- HideousKojima 4y agoAn emulator dev recreated the sonar's functionality somewhat recently: https://shonumi.github.io/articles/art13.html https://shonumi.github.io/articles/art13.html
- upupandup 4y agoabsolutely insane to me somebody knows this AND was able to dive this deep.
- Flatcircle 4y agoI, and probably many others, would pay a lot of money for this...
- elihu 4y agoAt one of the mini maker faire's at OMSI (a science museum in Portland) in past years, there was a guy with a penny sorting machine he had built. The machine would sort pennies by shininess, and direct them into the appropriate column based on a target greyscale image. The idea was to have a machine that could sort pennies to make a mural based on picture. (If a penny doesn't match the desired color of one of the columns, it would be redirected into a reject bin.) This game boy camera seems like an ideal input device for such a machine.
- neilv 4y agoWhen making lens mounts for big lenses, keep in mind that the tripod mounting is usually via a ring attached to the lens, rather than to the screw hole in the underside of the camera body. So, making your mount similarly strong enough to support whatever you're using as a camera body seems like good design.
- brudgers 4y agoSome previous comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17217827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17217827
- dmix 4y agoSomeone asked on the 2018 HN post: > Makes me wonder what a similar mod would do for video shot on a Fisher-Price PXL-2000 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17220344 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17220344 Looks like someone tried this on YouTube: https://youtu.be/aGJNUUtYAEc https://youtu.be/aGJNUUtYAEc
- overcast 4y ago"I took my abomination out for a walk to the beach to shoot some nature and wildlife."
- joshu 4y agoi have a gameboy camera and would really like to use it for zoom meetings. An original mono connectix quick cam would be good, too. a quick demo of gb camera and gb printer here: https://www.tiktok.com/@robotsdraw/video/7095836827122142510 https://www.tiktok.com/@robotsdraw/video/7095836827122142510
- ihuman 4y agoYou can. Plug the GB camera into a SNES using a Super Gameboy, which is then uses an HDMI adapter to plug it into an HDMI capture card. Some HDMI capture cards like the Elgato Camlink act like USB webcams, so you can use them in Zoom without any additional software. Source: https://youtube.com/shorts/Ctz73FQ4Blo https://youtube.com/shorts/Ctz73FQ4Blo
- ngcc_hk 4y agoI remember that connetix camera, just forget the context of it. What is it for?
- Naracion 4y agoPreviously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17217827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17217827
- greyhair 4y agoSometimes the least useful ideas are the best. Nice job.