wordle cloud. this is great for getting key info into an easy to access format. i put in six articles im reading and got this.  great for a quick glance.

camera prototype made by andrew shaw. i liked it so much i think that its going to be my new aesthetic for a while.

another view of andrews camera.

made a foam copy of andrews camera to figure out the sizes to fit my phone inside.

view of shutter release [works] and the slot for the phone.

shot taken by foamcam of andrew.

shot of me through the screw-on fisheye visible in the above photos of the foamcam.

shot of sam without fisheye.

had great fun about the studio with the foam cam so i moved it up a level.

about an hour in the workshop and the woodencam is basically there. just morticed a deep slot for the phone and a hole in the front for the lens surround.

taken with woodencam on the bus on my way home.

woodenbox with a fistful of photos

made another woodencam. this one takes the nasty praktica and has a manual focus and aperture.

both woodencams. i sanded the first on a wee bit so it fits in the hand a bit better. first on is a little rough till i get it going then il clean it up a bit. i made a few lens mounts so i can adjust the distance from the lens to sensor.

woodenbox connected to macam. atm the praktica digital camera is to only one i have that i can connect to my laptop like this so the picture quality is a bit dire. i need to get a powershot to connect like this or buy a compact flash card if i want better quality. this works for now. 

you can see here that i have added a wooden spacer behind the lens mount. its pretty close  to the right distance.  things come into focus pretty much corresponding with the number printed on the lens.

shot of heinz bottle taken with woodenbox and macam. the usb output is quite low res so this is as big as it gets. this shot was taken from about four feet away so you can see the huge crop factor.

sloe gin from across the room.

now thats a screenshot

fistful of photos taken with frankencam ver.woodenbox. at the moment im involved in some pretty bothersome trial and error trying to alter the lens to reduce the crop factor. if you have any expertise in this area please send me an email or leave a comment. thanks

woodenbox while lining up lens and adjusting focal length. lens mount is ldpe with a 38mm hole. the lens is m39 thread and the plastic has a bit of give so its a really snug fit.

rear view of wooden box. had to hack to the screen hole cos the workshop was shut and it was too hard to guess the focus as the numbers on the lens are no longer quite valid.

on the left is the one which takes the cheap praktica camera. the other takes my phone.

four views of woodenbox after a short encounter with the disc sander. this is actually a really nice size in the hand. the great thing about using wood is the body is the flexibility it allows.  and its really quick. it only takes about half an hour to rough out a body and drill all the relevant holes.

event at eca. students from across all design departments get one square metre to show their work and hopefully encourage colaboration.

woodenbox at above event. no real updates at the moment. been modifying the lens to make it match  the sensor. tried to change lens elements. no luck so far. almost any change i make results in some form of macro lens.  if anyone knows any way to do this i really need help with it. 

what a mess. i have been swapping lens elements. i have a fisheye, the lens elements from a 50mm  and the small glass elements from a canon powershot. so far i have spent about a week just swapping them about. i think that as of last night my understanding of how these elements make work together to make a lens has increased dramatically to about 1 %.

here is one combo that didnt work.

this one was a bit of a milestone. the first two elements of the 50mm lens have been reversed and i added the second last element from the powershot lens. it would not quite focus but the field of view was about the same as a 35/40mm lens on a 35mm camera.

this is essentially the same setup as above except the two pieces of glass from the 50mm are now the right way around.  field of view reduced but closer to focusing. 

almost any change i make to the lens results in a macro lens. here are some pixels.

here are slightly more pixels show that the field of view is increasing as the night wears on.

whoa its almost a fisheye. 

there it is.  a large step backwards.

now thats more like it. still cant focus though.

a photo out my window with one of the many lens combinations.  hard to get a decent focus. also the camera started adding a time/date stamp and i did not realise.

queen margaret bridge over the kelvin.

my bike down by the river. the level of focus seems to stay pretty much the same all the time.

water below the weir. so far the only sign of hope is the wider field of view. everything else is worse.

 

yet another lens variation. prinz galaxy 3x converted with 50mm carl zeiss tessar. worked well if that was what i wanted.

this time no converters but i have added the first two elements from a prakticar to the front of the carl zeiss. focused at about three feet but really magnified.

this is all the glass elements i am working with. there are about twenty pieces of glass. i have built countless variations. got a few nice macro lenses and some telephotos but nothing like a 50mm with normal focus range.

i took a chance the other day and called zeiss. believe it or not i had a long chat with a very helpful man there. he didnt think it was possible for me to build my own lens and thought that my best option would be to buy a very wide angle to make up for the crop factor. of course i cant afford such a thing. while thinking about it however i thought of super cameras. a quick bit of research showed that each frame on a super 8 film is almost the same size as the sensor in my frankencam. so as soon as i have a bit of money im going to buy one such as the above. hopefully it will do.

wee bit of research. people have drawn on any features they want. all but one put the shutter release on the right.  and a lot of people included a viewfinder.

quick mdf mould. im having a go at some pewter casting with a view to producing a metal camera chassis. i found a method called slush casting. the molten metal is poured into a mould and then poured straight out.  the metal touching the mould cools first and leaves a  wall thickness.

some pewter ready for melting. it has a much nicer feel to it than i had expected. i think if i ever get it into the shape of a camera it will be quite nice.

as you can see that didnt really work. the mdf insulated to molten pewter and it all set together.  i think the mould needs to conduct the heat from the edge of the molten metal quite quickly so that the centre is still liquid enough to pour out.

so here is a metal mould. i know it no longer resembles any sort of camera but  i dont have much pewter. this conducts the heat so well that i didnt get a chance to pour it before it set solid.

this one worked quite well. it needs to be emptied less then a second after pouring the molten pewter in.

found this camera by chance. i cant believe it exists.  i have spent ages looking for  a camera with a fixed focus lens and a manual mode.  the fixed lens is needed so it can be removed without the camera noticing. the manual mode stop the camera compensating for aperture adjustments made on the new lens.

check it out. got my paws on a super eight. unfortunately the lens is not removable and i dont want to wreck it.

some plaster moulds. i want to try slush casting the pewter in these and hope it wont insulate as much as the mdf.