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Cool. I've thought about this a lot, just because the UX of now cheap older cameras tends to be very good, for me at least, and the UX of the low end digital te
by uxp100 11y ago
Cool. I've thought about this a lot, just because the UX of now cheap older cameras tends to be very good, for me at least, and the UX of the low end digital tends to be very eh. > $1000 bodies, it's a different story of course. It isn't exactly clear what I meant by UX; With my Minolta SRT 201, I can see Aperture and Shutter speed at a glance, modify them with a quick, dedicated, dial twist, have a distance scale on the lens, and look through a large, somewhat bright viewfinder (Later Minolta viewfinders are noticeably brighter though). The mirrorless experience on the low end really can't compete. Cheap DSLRs are closer, but with shit viewfinders, and I hate the Canon top screen/dial system, and harder to adapt old lenses.
This means you can use the Shutter speed dial, the combo shutter button is a good idea that I did not think of at all (I always was thinking you'd use two buttons, one to put the digital side in BULB, then the actual shutter, cause I'm dumb). On the other hand, if I had a functional NEX-5, I don't think I would have the heart to do it, and 38mm is maybe a little long for m4/3 general purpose. I like ~40mm on APS-C.
Really I also kinda wanted to write the sensor driver, but sourcing decent sized image sensors seems impossible. I know some people who could maybe get me cell phone size samples, but m4/3? I don't even know how, and I'd need a decent datasheet too.
- keithpeter 11y agoI've often daydreamed about a sub-unit that could fit in the back of a film camera and contain a sensor and some electronics. The sensor part would be thin enough to fit over the pressure plate and the electronics would be in the film can space along with a micro sd card for storage. The existing aperture/shutter would continue to control the light reaching the sensor. Basically digital film. That would be neat.
- bearbin 11y agoTo some extent these already exist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_camera_back http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_camera_back But they're more for medium/large format cameras.
- keithpeter 11y agoAbsolutely. But think about the potential of a drop-in 35mm 'digital inside'! Retro joy. I agree, probably not practical.
- jonah 11y agoI recall someone proposing this and maybe even attempting to prototype this some years ago. Never worked. Maybe with more recent advances in the miniaturization of electronics and batteries it would be possible.
- ianburrell 11y agoWith new technology, you could solve the major limitation of digital back compared to digital camera of not being able to immediately review the picture on display. Should be possible to wirelessly connect digital back to phone or tablet to review photo right after it is taken.
- jonah 11y agoSeveral concepts are linked below. None in production of course. http://petapixel.com/2012/12/17/nikon-patent-shows-a-back-for-turning-film-slrs-into-digital-cameras/ http://petapixel.com/2012/12/17/nikon-patent-shows-a-back-fo... http://petapixel.com/2011/04/08/another-concept-design-for-digital-film/ http://petapixel.com/2011/04/08/another-concept-design-for-d... http://petapixel.com/2013/08/16/convert-your-old-film-slr-into-a-digital-camera-with-the-digipod/ http://petapixel.com/2013/08/16/convert-your-old-film-slr-in...
- majormajor 11y agoBack in the 90s, some of the first digital cameras weren't much more than that[1], with Kodak and such making ones for specific SLRs. The part that I never knew about until finding this article was that a company even tried the direct "drop in roll of film replacement" approach in the early 2000s, but they couldn't get it off the ground. [1] http://olivierduong.com/converting-film-cameras-to-digital-efs-1-the-technology-that-almost-was/ http://olivierduong.com/converting-film-cameras-to-digital-e...
- keithpeter 11y agoExcellent find. Amazing but the crop factor was brutal.
- ukandy 11y agoGoogle "silicon film" & "digipod" for a couple of attempts at exactly this.