3D-printed Digital Camera Obscuras

fferreres wrote:

Hank, I had missed this post and stumbled upon it by chance, that I almost missed it forever. From the pics, I gather one can print a longer tube to accommodate longer FLs.

Yes, and there are a wide selection of different size STLs posted. You have some flexibility because they all use a large screw thread to allow focusing.

One thing I immediately notice with my experiments is that most fresnels sold as magnifiers are really very low in quality.

Yup. I was shocked that stacking 'em worked at all, but 2 or 3 elements still worked to reduce the focal length. They never produce a sharp image.

I'd LOVE to see a version with a rear reverse 49mm or 55mm ring. This could allow mounting any kind of lens and camera.

Ah, but the focus distance for the digital camera would vary then too... so there would be another screw thread and two-part arrangement. It doesn't matter. Running with CHDK (and a script like the one I posted), a cheap PowerShot easily gets all the IQ this can deliver.

I will now head to the Indestructible, and realize how little I understand and much unprepared to make it, and how much I wished I could give 4x the $25 to have one printed and shipped my way

Faboky is an easy set of prints, but it is something like 24 hours of print time for a typical configuration. That probably means it would be expensive through typical 3D printing services, although it's cheap to print yourself.

A camera is not complete until there are amazing samples of pictures, so it's up to us fans of the optically strange to do our part.

Honestly, I haven't gotten any photos from it that I consider really compelling. However, it does easily produce images that look like they came from a large-format camera, so mission accomplished.

I think it rocks when one can have a professor do all crazy things on their own time, just for the love of everything photographic. You are really cool!

Well, most of what I do is stuff I love doing... that's why I'm OK with making a salary now as a tenured, chaired, professor that's a little less than half the lowest salary offer I had from industry four decades ago.

BTW, I also did end up having something spin off from this that I'm trying to publish as a scholarly work -- it's mostly a study of obscura screen properties, both rear and front projection. Incidentally, the Fresnel+ground glass shots you have here look really good; they have more texture and Fresnel artifacting, but my favorite rather opaque screen material tends to diffuse so much that it limits resolution and gets quite dark. BTW, Faboky does have the ability to mount a ground glass, on the inside of the middle rather than sandwiched between middle and back, but that doesn't really seem to be worthwhile over some other screen materials I've tested.

I think we've got a lot of folks in the forums here (including you) who are obviously inspired to put ridiculous levels of effort into playing with cameras and lenses and informing the community. I'm not so sure I'm all that far from the norm here.