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Posted on 08/16/2013 8:38:01 PM PDT by SWAMPSNIPER
The idea of fitting electronics into a film SLR in order to capture digital photos with it is not new. The thing is, most of the ideas we’ve shared ranged from April Fools jokes to promising concepts that never seem to advance beyond that.
The DigiPod is the first product we’ve seen actually become a reality. It’s a digital cartridge that fits inside your old film SLR, and if it makes it to market, it could be quite groundbreaking.
(Excerpt) Read more at petapixel.com ...
Time to corner the market on film Nikons on craigslist.
You can do this very easily with a medium format SLR like a Mamiya 645, but to have this available for a 35mm SLR is very interesting.
... have a couple of Pentax 110 SLRs w/full set of lenses waiting to be revived...
I have a sweet old Canon AE1 with a 400mm lens (among others, of course) I have had for many years. I’ve taken some prize-winning photos with it, but have often wished since the digital revolution that it was digitized. My son is a pro in Denver, and he has the Canon EOS. A very impressive unit.
I can breathe new life into my old Mamiya 1000 DTL.
reference bump
Stone the crows and call Me a POHM-my lover! Me mum just sold a fortune in old cameras and lenses for a piffling amount not too long ago! Arrrrghhh!
Or go micro-4/3 format. With a $20 adapter (brand specific) you can use all your old lenses.
Heh. I’ll be able to get the Tank going again :).
My brother worked for a start up company seems like a decade ago that was working on this and had functional prototypes. The company was driven into bankruptcy by a couple of employees that were ex Kodak, you figure out why. When it was time to liquidate assets these two tried to get the goods for cheap and the judge basically told the to them to take a hike.
I am surprised it has taken this long for it to resurface.
My Hasselblad 501C is in need of a digital conversion. The problem is the digital backs can set you back $10,000. I know there is a market for the digital conversion of their film camera. The faster such devices become available, the better.
That digital back cost so much because that sensor is huge (it matches the dimensions of a medium format film frame) and has a lot of bit depth. That said, I have seen some of the lower megapixel backs come down as higher and higher megapixel backs make it to market.
Speaking of Hasselblad, their top-of-the-line camera sports a 200megapixel back! It is yours for a mere 45 grand.
What I didn't see on the page was anticipated battery life (standby and how many pictures you can expect to take...), format of pictures, anticipated pixel sizes, etc. I also don't think he's given much thought about how he'd deliver 1,000 packages much less 5,000 packages.
I'm all for supporting inventors, and this project fills a void that really does need to be filled. But I really think he needs to collaborate with someone else...
The biggest bell and whistle I see missing from this project: Bluetooth 4.0 - view pictures on a smart phone as they are taken, change ASA settings, monitor battery power. That right there would double the functionality with very little additional hardware cost.
An inductive charging circuit would also help; strap on an external battery pack to the back of the camera and the film pod picks up the energy and charges the internal battery.
” It’s a digital cartridge that fits inside your old film SLR...”
Resourceful ingenuity.
“Time to corner the market on film Nikons on craigslist.”
Only if they can keep the pricepoint low on this new device. If they charge over $300 for one, the Craigslist buyers will be better off just buying a real dslr.
It will be great if this comes to fruition. I’ve got a big collection of vintage Nikons and some legendary Nikkor lenses. DSLRs never appealed to me because they seem so complicated. I understand film, shutter speeds, F-stops, and mechanical cameras. I have trouble wrapping my mind around digicams but if one of my old cameras could “go digital” I’d sure be willing to try it. In the meantime, I’ll stick with film.
“What I didn’t see on the page was anticipated battery life...”
Maybe they can repurpose the camera body’s lever that advances the film. Place a mini generator in the right side of the cartridge. To generate some juice, the user just needs to crank that lever a few times, which spins the mini generator in the cartridge.
That’s one of the beauties of this cartridge: It’ll let you switch easily between digital and film and back again. You’ll always be able to swing both ways.
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