Thoughts About Photography

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October 29, 2005

Found Photography Update

I wanted to give you a quick Found Photography update. First, check out the photo I just posted from my Lego camera of an inflatable giant. I finished rebuilding the Lego camera using software called BrickSmith so watch for a post in the next couple weeks talking about that and giving better instructions on how to build a camera out of Legos.

Thanks to the folks at Liquid Treat for recogninzing this site in the “Magic Potion” section of their newsletter. You can read the archived newsletter here. While you are there, subscribe to this fun newsletter. It’s free.

If anyone is curious about how the popularity of my Lego Camera translated into traffic, you can read my article on Be A Design Group called “How Not to be a One-Hit-Wonder.”

Finally, I added a “Recent Comments” heading to the sidebar on the main page. With the increased feedback that this site is receiving, this should help track the conversations a little better. Thanks to everyone for their comments, I really enjoy them.

Posted by Adrian at 7:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 10, 2005

The Lego Camera Tours the Internet

Thanks to some high profile links, my Lego Camera has been getting a surge of attention. My life is complete after being mentioned on BoingBoing, Metafilter, Engadget, and Digg.

Thanks to everybody for your kind words, and links! Hopefully my bandwidth will hold up, and some of you guys will come back! On a related note, you probably noticed the Google advertisements cluttering up my beautiful site. Sorry.

Posted by Adrian at 10:30 PM | Comments (4)

October 2, 2005

Medium Format Pinhole Lego Camera

After making the Lego conversion of my old Polaroid 95a, I decided to tackle another Lego challenge: a medium format Pinhole Lego Camera. I had several goals for the lego camera:

1. First, I wanted to make sure that the film advance knob only turned one direction.

2. Secondly, I wanted to have a film counter in addition to the red window.

3. And last but not least, it would be nice to have some sort of viewfinder.

Originally, I was going to build the camera in Lego Digital Designer, so I could share better instructions with the blogosphere. I still might do that, but until I get a computer that can run that software better, you will have to survive with just my photos. Let's get started...

Here is the main Lego Camera assembly:

There are a couple things to notice. First, notice that the top of this part is covered by the smooth sided Legos. This is done so that the lid of our camera doesn't stick to the "lid" we make later. Second, note the spring "shock absorber" at the top center. This piece pushes a block into the gear to keep it from turning backwards. There is only one piece that will have to be fabricated. There isn't a Lego piece that will fit perfectly in a 120 spool so we will have to fabricate our own. A Dremmel and some sand paper should do the trick. Here is the before and after photo:

This is the part that will be turning the spool.

Next, attach the following piece to the bottom of the assembly:

The two pieces at the bottom pivot to hold the medium format spools. The circle hole in the center is where our pinhole will be located.

Turning this piece over gives you a look at our shutter system. By moving the slider back and forth, we open and close the shutter. The animation below shows what I mean:

Here is what it looks like put together:

You can see that I lightproofed the inside, and added the pinhole.

Now it is time to build the lid of our lego camera. Nothing to fancy here:

You can see the red window as well as the top of the lid that has been light-proofed with tape. Here is the top view:

Now all that is left is to add some Lego Type to decorate it a bit:

This view gives you a better idea of how the film counter works. Basically, when you advance the film, this knob turns about an eighth of an inch. To make it accurate, I loaded the camera with film, and used the red window to see what frame I was on. As I got to a new frame, I marked the paper. It isn't completely accurate, but it is pretty close. There is always the red window if I want to double check. I also count the number of clicks from turning the knob. It takes about 23 clicks to advance one frame. You can see my viewfinder also from the last picture. Pretty basic: you just look through the hole and the square masks off an estimate of what you will be shooting towards.

I am hoping to post some photos from my first roll of film later on this week. Please let me know if you decide to build your own camera out of Legos, or if you have any questions about my design.

Posted by Adrian at 11:00 AM | Comments (47) | TrackBack