4 ms·

OKTO35 3D-Printed Analog Film Movie Camera

130 points by zdw 4y ago

DoesntMatter22 4y ago
This is amazing. The results definitely look like vintage super 8. Jitter is super bad, not saying that it's a problem though, just the look. I'm guessing this is partly due to 18fps and party due to the tolerances of the plastic 3d printed feeder. Overall amazing. I'd really like to see it with something closer to 16mm. I'm not sure how cheap or expensive that it would be but I'd be curious, that might be more usable in a practical situation. Overall great stuff though!
- lazycouchpotato 4y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2DGouNMKbs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2DGouNMKbs might interest you.
  - DoesntMatter22 4y ago
    Interesting, fidelity is somewhat better but it's still almost impossible to watch.
    - ekianjo 4y ago
      Probably can be improved by post processing to remove the jitter
pavlov 4y ago
Records 4x32 8mm frames within the surface area of a traditional 35mm film frame. This way you can shoot 67 seconds of 18fps footage into one ordinary film roll available off-the-shelf. The camera also works as a film scanner. This is brilliant because almost always you want to edit in digital. The camera’s mechanical jitter could be stabilized in post, so it doesn’t seem like an enormous problem to me. Impressive project!
slim 4y ago
This thing films 1200 frames per standard 35mm camera roll! It shoots 4 pictures on the 35mm film width. Which gives it similar specs to 8mm cameras. Constraint is : you can only film 300 frames at a time (a few seconds). But it makes the camera even more fun and unique.
anigbrowl 4y ago
This is worth developing semi-commercially through Kickstarter or the like. There's a market for this sort of thing, as demonstrated by the similar but hand cranked LomoKino camera: https://microsites.lomography.com/lomokino/ https://microsites.lomography.com/lomokino/ I'm a big fan of projects like this as it makes it very cheap to experiment with weird/exotic film stocks. This design is so advanced that you could shoot a 10 minute short film for a couple hundred $.
gorgoiler 4y ago
Photographic film is complicated. Having cheap and readily available amounts of it is amazing — it gives us one pre-made component so that we can focus all our energy on hacking a camera. This project is very cool because not only does it leverage pre-made film, but also that often overlooked marvel the pre-made electric motor is in there too. The electric motor was such a marvel when it was first available commercially that you would buy one separately and then gather together a smorgasbord of different machines which you could use with your motor. If you told these people at the time that motors would become ubiquitous to the extent that individual devices would have their own, permanently attached, dedicated motors they would have been astonished. Finally, if you don’t have access to a 3D printer but want to build your own camera, the classic example is the 24mm frame matchbox pinhole — little more than two film cans with an exposure chamber in between. http://www.matchboxpinhole.com/winder.html http://www.matchboxpinhole.com/winder.html
lycos 4y ago
What I love most about this is that it's basically the reverse of how 35mm photography was invented by Oskar Barnack. He wanted a more compact/portable camera to take on travels, because he was asthmatic, and ended up building a camera that could be used with 35mm film. (Or at least that's how I remembered the story, don't know how much of it is accurate)
ekianjo 4y ago
Amazing work !
epilys 4y ago
I'm awestruck with the dedication to detail, craftsmanship and quality of the design. And the creativity. I'm so glad the author chose to share this publicly.
bambax 4y ago
Amazing and extraordinary project. The cost comparison doesn't feel perfectly genuine, because it considers development _and scanning_ of 8mm has to be done in a laboratory while it can be done at home for 35mm. Regarding scanning, the author spent an inordinate amount of time building this amazing device than can scan as well as shoot; but he obviously could have built instead a machine to scan 8mm film. Even without it, it's fairly easy to transform 8mm film into digital at home; there are many tools to do this. Regarding film development, I'm not familiar with 8mm specific requirements, but if the author is able to develop color 35mm film, which is not that easy in my experience, he should be more than able to develop at least B&W 8mm film? Not to belittle this incredible project though!
- pantalaimon 4y ago
  The home-developed Kodak Gold looks a lot worse than what you’d get from a lab though. It sure has it’s very unique style this way and might even be a deliberate choice, but that film is popular for it’s nice and warm color rendering, not for producing so many false color artifacts.
  - silvertab 4y ago
    Weird, c41 is an extremely standardized process. Developing times, temperatures, results etc. are very consistent. I get the exact same results by developing it at home than when I get it done at a lab. B&W is a lot more subjective and most labs will charge you more to develop it because it has more variables and can't be as easily automated. Scanning and color reversal is where you'll probably see a difference for color negatives, but development, if done properly, should be very similar.
    - 0_____0 4y ago
      How tight do you have to hold bath temperatures? I haven't developed C41 at home but have done B&W, and reading about home C41 I remember that it seemed trickier to get right.
      - 4y ago
alenrozac 4y ago
Yo! I thought I saw Ljubljana in the film shot, then I noticed you're one of us! Very cool project, love it!
- morcheeba 4y ago
  Me, too! I had such a great time at your hacker summer camp when I visited a few years ago - met amazing people in beautiful Soča valley. Those images brought back memories of the extra days I stayed in Ljubljana. https://pif.camp https://pif.camp
DrNosferatu 4y ago
I love it! The magical feel of analogue moving image... <3 Is the creator reading this? Personally, what would attract me more to a mkIII of this camera would be: 1. scan with smartphone; 2. lowering usage costs / efficiency of film use; 3. further compactness; - Would you also like some systems engineering thoughts?
achairapart 4y ago
This is an impressive project. I wonder about the longevity of the 3d-printed mechanism. Anyway, some years ago I went to a Lumière brothers exhibition. At the end of the exhibition there was an original "Cinematograph" in function. I was astonished by the simplicity of the machine: It was just a little wooden box with a film magazine, a lens and a hand crank.[1][2] And it doubled as a projector, just by placing a lamp behind it[3] (an oil lamp, and film was highly flammable back then, most early motion pictures were lost due to fire). And that was it, it required neither electricity, nor any special or complex operation. I couldn't stop thinking how this little device was the start of one of the most important and influential industries of the 20th century. I guess most of the innovation was in the development of the film itself. [1]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Institut_Lumi%C3%A8re_-_CINEMATOGRAPHE_Camera.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Institut... [2]: https://img.theculturetrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/1024px-cinematograf-project3.jpg https://img.theculturetrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/10... [3]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/CinematographeProjection.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Cinemato...
jacquesm 4y ago
Mad props, what a skill level. I've been busy for a day or so designing a bracket to hold solar panel cables, a project of this complexity takes some serious dedication. Really curious where this will go, 3D printers are still in their infancy but projects like these show their true potential.
Turing_Machine 4y ago
Lovely work!
flipthefrog 4y ago
Just for comparision, this is the quality Super 8 is capable of when shot on a good camera and professionally scanned and digitally stabilized: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Nh9BTMWj9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Nh9BTMWj9M Obviously rather expensive to do it this way, but shows how much image quality you can squeeze out of that 5.8 x 4 mm image frame

130 points by zdw 4y ago

This is amazing. The results definitely look like vintage super 8. Jitter is super bad, not saying that it's a problem though, just the look. I'm guessing this is partly due to 18fps and party due to the tolerances of the plastic 3d printed feeder. Overall amazing. I'd really like to see it with something closer to 16mm. I'm not sure how cheap or expensive that it would be but I'd be curious, that might be more usable in a practical situation. Overall great stuff though!

lazycouchpotato 4y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2DGouNMKbs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2DGouNMKbs might interest you.
- DoesntMatter22 4y ago
  Interesting, fidelity is somewhat better but it's still almost impossible to watch.
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    Probably can be improved by post processing to remove the jitter

pavlov 4y ago

Records 4x32 8mm frames within the surface area of a traditional 35mm film frame. This way you can shoot 67 seconds of 18fps footage into one ordinary film roll available off-the-shelf. The camera also works as a film scanner. This is brilliant because almost always you want to edit in digital. The camera’s mechanical jitter could be stabilized in post, so it doesn’t seem like an enormous problem to me. Impressive project!

slim 4y ago

This thing films 1200 frames per standard 35mm camera roll! It shoots 4 pictures on the 35mm film width. Which gives it similar specs to 8mm cameras. Constraint is : you can only film 300 frames at a time (a few seconds). But it makes the camera even more fun and unique.

anigbrowl 4y ago

This is worth developing semi-commercially through Kickstarter or the like. There's a market for this sort of thing, as demonstrated by the similar but hand cranked LomoKino camera: https://microsites.lomography.com/lomokino/ https://microsites.lomography.com/lomokino/ I'm a big fan of projects like this as it makes it very cheap to experiment with weird/exotic film stocks. This design is so advanced that you could shoot a 10 minute short film for a couple hundred $.

gorgoiler 4y ago

Photographic film is complicated. Having cheap and readily available amounts of it is amazing — it gives us one pre-made component so that we can focus all our energy on hacking a camera. This project is very cool because not only does it leverage pre-made film, but also that often overlooked marvel the pre-made electric motor is in there too. The electric motor was such a marvel when it was first available commercially that you would buy one separately and then gather together a smorgasbord of different machines which you could use with your motor. If you told these people at the time that motors would become ubiquitous to the extent that individual devices would have their own, permanently attached, dedicated motors they would have been astonished. Finally, if you don’t have access to a 3D printer but want to build your own camera, the classic example is the 24mm frame matchbox pinhole — little more than two film cans with an exposure chamber in between. http://www.matchboxpinhole.com/winder.html http://www.matchboxpinhole.com/winder.html

lycos 4y ago

What I love most about this is that it's basically the reverse of how 35mm photography was invented by Oskar Barnack. He wanted a more compact/portable camera to take on travels, because he was asthmatic, and ended up building a camera that could be used with 35mm film. (Or at least that's how I remembered the story, don't know how much of it is accurate)

ekianjo 4y ago

Amazing work !

epilys 4y ago

I'm awestruck with the dedication to detail, craftsmanship and quality of the design. And the creativity. I'm so glad the author chose to share this publicly.

bambax 4y ago

Amazing and extraordinary project. The cost comparison doesn't feel perfectly genuine, because it considers development _and scanning_ of 8mm has to be done in a laboratory while it can be done at home for 35mm. Regarding scanning, the author spent an inordinate amount of time building this amazing device than can scan as well as shoot; but he obviously could have built instead a machine to scan 8mm film. Even without it, it's fairly easy to transform 8mm film into digital at home; there are many tools to do this. Regarding film development, I'm not familiar with 8mm specific requirements, but if the author is able to develop color 35mm film, which is not that easy in my experience, he should be more than able to develop at least B&W 8mm film? Not to belittle this incredible project though!

pantalaimon 4y ago
The home-developed Kodak Gold looks a lot worse than what you’d get from a lab though. It sure has it’s very unique style this way and might even be a deliberate choice, but that film is popular for it’s nice and warm color rendering, not for producing so many false color artifacts.
- silvertab 4y ago
  Weird, c41 is an extremely standardized process. Developing times, temperatures, results etc. are very consistent. I get the exact same results by developing it at home than when I get it done at a lab. B&W is a lot more subjective and most labs will charge you more to develop it because it has more variables and can't be as easily automated. Scanning and color reversal is where you'll probably see a difference for color negatives, but development, if done properly, should be very similar.
  - 0_____0 4y ago
    How tight do you have to hold bath temperatures? I haven't developed C41 at home but have done B&W, and reading about home C41 I remember that it seemed trickier to get right.
    - 4y ago

alenrozac 4y ago

Yo! I thought I saw Ljubljana in the film shot, then I noticed you're one of us! Very cool project, love it!

morcheeba 4y ago
Me, too! I had such a great time at your hacker summer camp when I visited a few years ago - met amazing people in beautiful Soča valley. Those images brought back memories of the extra days I stayed in Ljubljana. https://pif.camp https://pif.camp

DrNosferatu 4y ago

I love it! The magical feel of analogue moving image... <3 Is the creator reading this? Personally, what would attract me more to a mkIII of this camera would be: 1. scan with smartphone; 2. lowering usage costs / efficiency of film use; 3. further compactness; - Would you also like some systems engineering thoughts?

achairapart 4y ago

This is an impressive project. I wonder about the longevity of the 3d-printed mechanism. Anyway, some years ago I went to a Lumière brothers exhibition. At the end of the exhibition there was an original "Cinematograph" in function. I was astonished by the simplicity of the machine: It was just a little wooden box with a film magazine, a lens and a hand crank.[1][2] And it doubled as a projector, just by placing a lamp behind it[3] (an oil lamp, and film was highly flammable back then, most early motion pictures were lost due to fire). And that was it, it required neither electricity, nor any special or complex operation. I couldn't stop thinking how this little device was the start of one of the most important and influential industries of the 20th century. I guess most of the innovation was in the development of the film itself. [1]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Institut_Lumi%C3%A8re_-_CINEMATOGRAPHE_Camera.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Institut... [2]: https://img.theculturetrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/1024px-cinematograf-project3.jpg https://img.theculturetrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/10... [3]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/CinematographeProjection.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Cinemato...

jacquesm 4y ago

Mad props, what a skill level. I've been busy for a day or so designing a bracket to hold solar panel cables, a project of this complexity takes some serious dedication. Really curious where this will go, 3D printers are still in their infancy but projects like these show their true potential.

Turing_Machine 4y ago

Lovely work!

flipthefrog 4y ago

Just for comparision, this is the quality Super 8 is capable of when shot on a good camera and professionally scanned and digitally stabilized: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Nh9BTMWj9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Nh9BTMWj9M Obviously rather expensive to do it this way, but shows how much image quality you can squeeze out of that 5.8 x 4 mm image frame