Woke up with a crazy idea for a camera

So I started building it this morning

I have a mind that never stops thinking and often find myself waking up with random ideas for things to build. I’ve had this 1 inch action camera module sitting around my place for a few months and haven’t been able to figure out what to do with it. I didn’t feel like making another conventional camera with a display and standard layout.

So for some reason, I really enjoy using cameras that are limited and difficult to use. I decided to try making a screenless digital camera with manual focus with only zone focusing and a retro optical viewfinder. I’m only about 2 hours into this idea but the build has been coming together surprisingly fast.

Here’s the bare camera module to start off with:

It’s an Sony IMX283 sensor being powered by the iCatch V37 camera processor. Allows you to shoot 20mp jpg images and 40k60 video. Essentially, think it’s the guts of an action camera.

I then quickly drafted up a 3d printed C mount shell, dropped the STL on the Bambu A1 mini and got this made in about 45 mins.

Then I had to figure out how to power it. The camera has a built in charging module so I grabbed 2 1860 batteries I had lying around and spliced it into the power input.

You can also see that I put a manual focus C mount lens onto the body. From here, I plan to place this optical view finder on top and then 3d print a full body to enclose everything.

To test that it actually works, I connected the module to my phone via wifi and it works!

The vision is that this will be a fully enclosed manual focus camera that will be very lightweight, quirky and discrete to use for street photography.

Stay tuned if you’re into this! I’ll probably have it all completed in the next couple of days.

Cheers,

Malcolm