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Zenit ET film camera to digital. Newbie help

Started Oct 1, 2019 | Discussions thread
ProfHankD
ProfHankD Veteran Member • Posts: 9,147
Re: Zenit ET film camera to digital. Newbie help
1

pradyvr wrote:

Hi,
I have my Zenit ET film camera that i like convert it into digital. I'm analysing the practical possibility of it and read a lot to understand the steps that are needed to be taken care of.

Is this as a hack or to make a camera you might actually use?

I have a doubt about the technical possibility of positioning a fixed lens digital camera sensor on my old zenit ET. Is it possible to have it fixed at the right place, so that it would make less modifications to the existing camera .?
I'm also interested in choosing the best sensor. I understand there are more factors to consider but for a basic minimal setup what you guys will suggest. Please share your advice. Thank you.

Good sensors tend to be quite expensive, especially anything approaching full-frame size. As a quick and cheap hack, it's pretty easy to stick a webcam sensor into the film plane of your Zenit, but it'll be a tiny sensor. Personally, I think the webcam sensor hack is easy enough, and I've done such things on other cameras before myself... but I don't think you can get it up to really useful quality levels.

With major remanufacturing, you could probably manage to stick an old Sony NEX inside the Zenit ET frame. Don't underestimate the magnitude of that effort.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG19U8dvNh4 is a somewhat homey example.

The really easy way is https://imback.eu/home/. It's probably a tad better IQ than the webcam hack, but it's quite a bit more obtrusive.

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