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Product: Camera: Film
Digifilm   (+5, -2)  [vote for, against]
A retrofit for all that great 35mm equipment.

I would like someone to develop a digital camera array that fits into the space normally occupied by conventional 35mm film canisters. The unit would be P shaped with a very thin arm containing the array itself while the body (where the film would normally be coiled) would contain a the memory, a small battery and a Bluetooth array for ferrying the pictures out to your PC. To maintain the Retro-Mod quality the camera would give no external cue that it was now a digital camera. Triggering the array would be caused by a second polarized array that detects the opening of the apeture. To conserve the battery a motion sensor would sleep the unit while in storage. I know that every aspect of this is possible including the compact imaging array.

Untold thousands of wonderfull attractive high quality conventional cameras are being discarded every year in the switch to digital. I believe that many enthusiasts born and raised setting their F-stops and loving their old faithfull cameras would snap up such an upgrade. Seasons greetings to all.
-- WcW, Dec 25 2008

Digital Backs http://en.wikipedia...Digital_camera_back
Wiki's take on the subject. [DrCurry, Dec 25 2008]

(?) First Google turned up this. http://findarticles...93/is_/ai_n24342217
[AbsintheWithoutLeave, Dec 25 2008]

A picture. http://www.imaging-...EWS/1000760900.html
[AbsintheWithoutLeave, Dec 25 2008]

LMGTFY https://www.google....tCxYQ4dUDCAc&uact=5
These have been around for ages. [neutrinos_shadow, Sep 16 2019]

You can get digital backs for a lot of the better film cameras. Slip the old one off and the digital back on.
-- DrCurry, Dec 25 2008


You mean like the never-quite-made-it-to-market Irvine of about ten years ago? [link].
-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Dec 25 2008


so close, so teasingly, promisingly possible and yet I cannot buy one. Somebody, re-tool your cheap korean knockoff camera factory today, there's money here. And forget the patent, all you need is some bells and whistles and bob's your uncle.
-- WcW, Dec 25 2008


haha

i imagine that a nowadays-digital camera, that can swap lenses is still a pretty penny. While the used analogs are not so bad. Am i wrong? I've quit even going to the pawn shop with mine. Not of value there, as it were.

I'm at an initial stage of a brainstorm ( where stupid is as welcome as not stupid ), a universal do-hickey that combines with the mirrors to allow view finder viewing of the pics, vid.

yea, sure the Ol aperature can be open or closed . No film to react. ...

um , well still working on it. I take back my , 'yea, sure.

I had not thought of this before. I like it. If only they hadn't used 35mm to begin with. So un-Inchs.
-- Sir_Misspeller, Dec 25 2008


Good investment - the Voigtlander VF135 goes for a lot more than £20 now
-- hippo, Sep 12 2019


Over the last many years (basically since finding my dad's old Voigtländer camera* in the basement), I've occasionally thought about making this kind of thing. However, a couple of months ago, I looked into image sensors, and I was unable to find one at Digi-?[Kk]ey, Mouser, or Arrow that was similar in size to a 35 mm film frame.

Another thought I had was to use reusable film to actually capture the image (because, in a film camera, being designed to have only film go there, there's not much thickness available for inserting things at the focal plane), which would then be reeled into one of the cylindrical spaces on the sides of the camera, scanned, and erased. But I don't know of any kind of erasable light-sensitive film.

*Not sure what model; I haven't seen it in a few years. Will have to find it again at some point.
-- notexactly, Sep 16 2019


// These have been around for ages. //

Hmm. Some of those images look pretty promising, but I don't have time at the moment to investigate them further. My only question now is: How did I never even hear a rumor of such things being available in my past (extensive) searches?

On the other hand, while lying in bed a couple of nights ago, I came up with another application for reusable film. I think it was to be able to project digital video using film projectors.
-- notexactly, Sep 20 2019



random, halfbakery