diy

Fuji Instax back for Hasselblad

Isaac Blankensmith writing in PetaPixel about building an Instax instant film back for a Hasselblad 500:

Instant photos are magical. They develop before your eyes. You can share them, gift them, spill water on them, draw on them. The only problem is that most instant cameras are pretty cheap — that’s why I’ve always wanted to hack my medium format camera to take instant photos with shallow depth of field and sharpness.

Since Fuji ceased production of their Polaroid-compatible peel-apart films a few years ago, there has been significant interest in a Fuji Instax back. At least two Kickstarters have been announced, Hasselblad Square Instant Film Back and Rezivot Instant Film Processor, but neither of those was successful.

@instantmediumformat on Instagram converted an old Mamiya Press Camera, but has offered few details for those who wish to follow. Blankensmith’s post is a pretty good starting point for people who’ve been considering building one for themselves–possibly people like me.

Peephole DIY Fisheye Lens

Flickr blog I discovered the Peephole fish eye group. The idea is simple: us a $5 door peephole to give your camera a fisheye lens. Here are the instructions:

  1. Hold peephole against rim of camera lens.
  2. Set camera to “macro”. (the image is actually displayed on the inside face of the convex lens of the peephole. The camera must focus on the foreground image rather than the background image.)
  3. Zoom in to the point that the viewable “circle” is framed almost evenly.
  4. For best results, brighter lighting will avoid unwanted noise (grain)
  5. Enjoy and have fun.

You can buy a pricier model with the Lomo label on it (and if you go looking, you’ll find a “peephole reverser” which is probably useless for your photography…probably). Henry Gordon Dietz offers a lot more info.

Above is my first experiment with a peephole fisheye and my cheap video camera.

DIY Hoverboard

My friend Troy sent along a pointer to The Gadget Show‘s feature on DIY hoverboards. They claim it all goes together with basic tools, a leaf blower, plywood, a bit of pipe, and other various parts totaling about £150. Oh yeah, they also recommend “an insurance policy with good fringe benefits,” and being as British […] » about 100 words

CubeSat Kickstarts New Space Race

CubeSat is Cal Poly’s plan to make space accessible to the rest of us. That is, they want to make it easy and cheap enough to launch satellites that even high schools can get a chance at it. Engadget says they call it “the Apple II of space exploration” (link added). Here, read this: The […] » about 300 words