I am finally heading back to OpenSauce this year! After a hiatus in 2025 I am gettin back to making some interesting camera designs. Back in 2024 and what feels like a lifetime ago I introduced the Pieca Camera system, a raspberry pi based camera adapted to using M mount lenses. This year Ive gone in a different direction!
Adapting modern technology to Analog film. The concept may seem simple but it’s more complicated than even I initially thought.
The Digi-View System
I present the Digi-View camera!
It’s a film camera with a digital live view component. It works similarly to a reflex system but there is no mirror! in its place I use a digital pi camera to view the image that is projected onto the film plane by a large format or medium format lens. Designed for 6×7 and to use a linhoff technica film back.
There are more design challenges to this than I can count, but it’s a camera inside a camera (camera inception). An auxiliary shutter (that covers the film plane) is used as a white projection screen where the image can be focused and composed.
This has gone through a couple of design iterations. the first version is more of a box design with a bellows extension. this allowed me to try different lenses quickly and is a fully modular design that can be used as a stand-alone analog camera.
Minnow Monochrome
The Next camera I am exhibiting is called the Minnow Monochrome.
It is a fully digital raspberry pi based camera that is the size of a mint tin, magnets your iPhone or magsafe compatible phone case, and shoots raw infrared black and white or color photos! It even has an IR flash system that can illuminate scenes without any visible disturbance.
It is in very early stages but it’s designed to be used with a companion app that configures settings, transfers photos, and streams a live view for composition. The Minnow can also be used stand alone once set up, to get a more analog experience.
Assorted Camera Contraptions
Along the way designing for these cameras I have also made a few other camera contraptions that I am bringing along.
While 6×7 film has a high resolution there is nothing like instant film. I had been wanting to build a camera for the install square film and made an adapter back for the digit-view v1 system. This is designed to be used all analog mode.
Here is it in Digi-View mode and where it has an adapted instax back
I also designed a working 3d printed large format shutter. it uses springs and can be fitted with different optics. the one caveat being it only has 1 speed 1/125s. I had wanted to use this on my didi-view system but found the bronco lens to be much better suited.
Open Source Details
The majority of these projects are in the process of becoming open source, with more information on the way!
Diving into Digi-View Technicals
The latest version of the Digi-View camera takes this simple design to the next level! I had seen some recent work reverse engineering the electronic trigger of an old Bronica ETR lens and thought that it would be a good fit for a more integrated system. that way I would not need to mess with manually setting the shutter speed often moving the v1 design out of focus while doing so. But this ment changing the whole camera body as the Bronica lens flange focus distance is considerably shorter than the 4×5 lenses I had been using off an old Graflex.
In the new scenario the biggest engineering challenge was a new auxiliary shutter needed to be designed. this is because the flange distance of the new lens would not allow for a single hinged design like the box camera. here I needed 2 overlapping flaps that could be closed together and in sequence. This meant even more automation. good for usability but harder to get just right.
Here is the basic structure of the new auxiliary shutter
With this I designed a new body that allowed for the pi camera placement. This has been an ongoing challenge to find a camera module that is sensitive to low light and has a close focusing distance. Most modules are in the 8 to 10 cm range, way too much to fit near the Bronica Lens. I had been using an Arducam Hawkeye sensor but have recently found the raspberry pi v3 camera module with the wide lens as it can close focus down to 5cm!
The linhoff film back adapter has remained largely static, this means that other designed that don’t need the auxiliary shutter can forgo it and can be used and remixed to other 3d printed cameras.
There are two options for powering the system, a standalone display with a pi-cm4 module and a pi-zero w with a companion app that is using the same internals as the minnow camera.
Swimming with the Minnow Technicals
The minnow came about as an idea for a monochrome camera that was small, pocketable, cheap, and could shoot raw infrared monochrome images. Designed around the raspberry pi zero w and the raspberry pi camera module v3 noir wide it takes shape as a small mint or sardine tin. processing raw photos is at the very edge of the pi zeros capabilities so given we all have a much more powerful computer in our pockets I figured why not use that!
The firmware is based around the official build root configuration as an extremely light weight linux os. it integrates in the drivers for the cameras and wifi access point along with the gpio control. A rust daemon is then run to manage the cameras state and settings.
A custom PCB was whipped together and with a bodge here and there we have a more polished system that uses a low profile mechanical keyboard switch for the shutter, edge mount tactile buttons for setting focus, exposure, etc and a unique IR flash array that can be triggered to better illuminate subjects.
The 3D printed case is built in layers that come together like an onion, and like an onion designing this made me want to cry… I am not the best 3d designer but I am pretty happy with this one. Inside it fits the pi zero w, custom PCB, 14500 battery, power circuit, camera module, and a magsafe magnet array, all in less than 90mm x 60mm x 25mm box!
