Digital Camera Hacks
« Previous EntriesPet photography and tracking
Wednesday, July 9th, 2008Filed under: digital cameras hacks, misc hacks
We’ve seen numerous products geared toward tracking the location and activities of your pets, two in the last month, but we feel sure you can make more functional devices than those you can purchase. Let’s look at a few and consider our options.
A camera called Pet’s Eye View hangs from your pet’s collar and takes photos in your choice of 1, 5, and 15 minute intervals. While the concept is good, the execution is poor: it can only take up to 35 images at 640 x 480px with no other resolution options available, and it has no expandable media slot. We also dislike the lack of GPS tracking, but wouldn’t really expect that for the $45 price.
Intervalometers and timelapse photography
Wednesday, July 9th, 2008Filed under: digital cameras hacks
Time lapse photography can seem out of reach for many of us who don’t have fancy cameras(or a hacked cannon point and shoot). We recently covered using a TI-83 as a timer, and now we’ve gathered a collection of DIY intervalometers to help you get clicking.
Up first, for those of you who don’t want to dismantle your camera, here are some mechanical ones that will work on any camera.
[Simplesimon] has done a fantastic job with this integrated system pictured above. He’s added an adjustable solenoid to click the shutter release. By including a second kit board to handle an RF remote, it has remote single shot capabilities too!
Touchkit - IR multitouch screen
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008Filed under: digital cameras hacks, home entertainment hacks, misc hacks
If you’ve got an extra grand laying around, you can pre-order one of [nortd]’s touchkits. It features a unique custom made acrylic screen with a crap ton of IR LEDs embedded in it. An included IR camera provides the input and a projector (you get to supply your own) is used to light the surface.
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StereoData Maker
Monday, July 7th, 2008Filed under: digital cameras hacks
So you got CHDK working on your camera, and the histograms, raw image files, variable shutter speeds and other added functions are amazing, but stereo imaging is what you really want. If you have two or more CHDK-ready cameras, it’s cheap and easy to run StereoData Maker, a system that synchronizes the shutter and flash of multiple cameras.
Flip camera microscope and macro lenses
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008Filed under: digital cameras hacks
Flip cameras are fun and easy to use, but not particularly versatile. If you’ve had poor results at macrophotography with a Flip, you might be interested in these DIY lenses. One is macroscopic lens for taking photos and video of small things, and the other is a microscope for even smaller things.
To construct the macro lens, you’ll need a pair of binoculars, some rubber bands and paper clips. Simply remove the lenses from the front of the binoculars, complete with the plastic casings that hold them. Thread a rubber band folded in half to the plastic casing and hold it in place with small segments from the paper clip. Now place the lens in front of the Flip’s lens and secure the rubber band around the flip.
Create your own HDR images
Monday, June 30th, 2008Filed under: digital cameras hacks
Hack-A-Day friend [Nathan] showed us some of his results creating his own High Dynamic Range images. Three normal Low Dynamic Range photos. One is under exposed, one is normal and the third is over exposed to capture the information needed. Then all three are used to create a single HDR image. Technically, the HDR image contains too much information to properly display, but even this limited version looks damn impressive.
Wide angle lens for the ATC2K video camera
Monday, June 30th, 2008Filed under: digital cameras hacks
We just ordered up a new ATC3K video camera from Oregon Scientific for some, uh projects. (No, not our new porn site.) If you’ve got one of the older ATC2K cams, you can mod it a bit to avoid dropping another C-note on the new model. [Carlos] wrote up his mod to remove and replace the original narrow lens with a wide angle fisheye lens. The install requires some significant effort and some case modding - probably not a good idea if the waterproof feature is dear to you.
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Arduino PhotoLab
Monday, June 30th, 2008Filed under: digital cameras hacks
Droplet photography (link translated from French) often produces simple and beautiful images, but timing the exposure can be tricky. Snapping the photo too early or too late can cause you to miss the action, which only lasts a fraction of a second. EquinoxeFR (the people behind the Asus WL500GP audio hack) came up with a solution to this problem using a circuit with an ATmega168 running an Arduino environment. The circuit controls a syringe that contains a liquid and is triggered remotely to release a drop into a darkened chamber. A camera with the shutter open is attached to the chamber, and before the droplet hits, it crosses an IR sensor that triggers the flash to go off a few milliseconds later, capturing the unique crown shape of the impact. No schematic is available as yet, but comments at the bottom of the post suggest one will be coming soon.
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How to build an arctic web cam
Monday, June 30th, 2008Filed under: digital cameras hacks, daily
This particular unit has been de-comissioned in 2005, but it’s still interesting. JACARA set up a webcam on Antarctica. They used an off the shelf Axis NetEye200 camera, mounted it inside a pair of hemispherical plastic domes along with a small electric heater and thermostat to keep the device from freezing.
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Hack cameras with the Image Fulgerator
Sunday, June 29th, 2008Filed under: digital cameras hacks, misc hacks
[Wallace] sent in this awesome project built by [Julius Von Bismarck]. The “Image Fulgerator” is the result of mating an optical slave flash with a camera body turned projector. The result is the ability to project ghost images onto a picture being taken by anyone using a camera with their flash. Check out the demo video after the break or hit the project site for more.
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On-board focus confirmation for the Canon Digital Rebel XT
Sunday, June 29th, 2008Filed under: digital cameras hacks, daily
We’ve seen plenty of lens hacks, but [Koray] took things in a new direction. Rather than buy lens chips for modding all of his manual lenses, he added a lens chip inside his Digital Rebel 300D (aka XT). Most of us might cringe at gutting their XT, but he performed this bit of soldering surgery on a unit he picked up for £40 and repaired. Excellent work!
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Mega underwater DIY video housing
Friday, June 27th, 2008Filed under: digital cameras hacks, daily
This fantastically huge housing was put together by [Ed Sauer]. He put together this housing using TIG welded 6061 aluminum for the body and machined the port mount out of 7075 aluminum. The lens port is a commercial unit from a housing manufacturer along with a few manual controls. He wrote up the build in this pdf.
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Waterproof USB for underwater cameras
Friday, June 20th, 2008Filed under: digital cameras hacks, daily
Underwater camera housings work great - but they are prone to humidity, dirt and dust problems if you open them more often than needed. In order to download the images off of his digital camera between dives, [Matt] decided to add a waterproof external USB port to his housing. He had an extra 5 pin strobe bulkhead installed by Ikelite (makers of excellent housings). Then he spliced on a mini-usb cable for the camera and spliced a standard USB end onto a strobe cable. During dives, the port is closed with an o-ring sealed cap.
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Servo focus and aim your telescope
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008Filed under: digital cameras hacks, daily
The idea of using servos to aim a telescope isn’t new, but [John]’s build looks so much like a prop from Johnny Mnemomic that we can’t resist posting it. The goal isn’t so much remote control as it is usability. He added a webcam and a pair of servos to help him fine focus and adjust the elevation of the scope to minimize vibration during those sensitive operations.
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Twitter security cam
Monday, June 16th, 2008Filed under: digital cameras hacks
It seems that people keep coming up with ingenious things to with Twitter. Reminding you to water your plants is relatively inventive, but for shear practicality, [Shantanu Goel] created a security camera using a webcam, a few freeware apps, and a Twitter account.