Within the days earlier than digital cameras got here alongside, Polaroid stuffed an vital area of interest out there. As an alternative of taking pictures by means of an entire roll of movie after which ready for a developer to make prints, you can get your photograph nearly immediately. However as soon as digital cameras grew to become sensible and reasonably priced, these advantages may now not outweigh the price of movie. We’ve seen a resurgence in Polaroid curiosity as youthful generations embrace bodily media, however the movie continues to be very costly. That’s why Redditor Just_matty_dee transformed a Polaroid right into a digital digital camera to get the allure with out the price.
This can be a Polaroid Solar 660 digital camera, which was available on the market within the Nineteen Eighties. In comparison with different Polaroid cameras, it was particular as a result of it had ultrasonic autofocus. At a time when most Polaroid cameras (and low-end cameras generally) merely used tiny apertures for “infinite” focus, that was a very nice function.
However Just_matty_dee couldn’t justify the price of movie. Even when bought in bulk, the movie will price greater than $2 per photograph and that will get costly quick. The digital camera Just_matty_dee bought was additionally damaged, so it will have required restore to work anyway. As an alternative, he transformed it right into a digital digital camera.
To carry out the conversion, Just_matty_dee first eliminated as lots of the inner parts as attainable. Fortunately, Polaroid cameras are usually fairly roomy inside in comparison with standard movie cameras. That gave Just_matty_dee sufficient house to place a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W single-board pc contained in the physique. That captures photographs by means of a Raspberry Pi Digital camera Module 3, which has a reasonably good 12-megapixel Sony IMX708 CMOS sensor — not precisely high-end, however loads for a point-and-shoot digital camera.
A 1.3” LCD display reveals photograph previews and there are a few buttons for the person interface. Energy comes from a USB battery financial institution and Just_matty_dee programmed his personal Python script, utilizing the Picamera2 library, to seize and course of the photographs.
With the electronics full, Just_matty_dee gave the digital camera a coat of yellow paint impressed by Max’s digital camera from the Life is Unusual online game. The digital nature of this digital camera does scale back a few of that bodily media magic that makes Polaroid cameras so interesting, however it’s now much more economical to function.
