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Check out these eight 3D printed photo & video tools designed to make your life a little easier

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I put off getting a 3D printer for the longest time. I didn’t want to get one just for the sake of having a new toy that I’d get bored with, so I held off getting one until I felt I had a genuine need for one. Now, I have five – the most recent of which are the Snapmaker 2.0 A350 and its predecessor, the Snapmaker Original, and I find them absolutely invaluable.

I’ve been using them recently to print a bunch of tools and accessories to help me with my photography and filmmaking. Some of them are workflow and organisation accessories while others are actual tools used to create content. So, here, I’m going to talk about some of the most useful things I’ve printed lately.

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Use this simple method to remove yellow tint from vintage lenses

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Many photographers love using vintage lenses for their unique character. With Thorium-coated “radioactive lenses,” their yellowish tint is what gives them a distinct look. However, the downside is that the color intensifies with time, turning the lens’ “character” into something that’s more of a nuisance.

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The Ligero69 is a 3D printed camera that lets you use Mamiya Press lenses and backs

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One of the great things about the proliferation of 3D printers is the amount of cool stuff people are coming up with – especially when it comes to cameras. We’ve shown you a few before, several times, but this pair is particularly interesting. They’re designed for use with Mamiya Press lenses and backs. There’s the Ligero69, which lets you use a Mamiya Press roll film back and the LigeroPress for use with a Mamiya Press Polaroid back.

Designed by Thingiverse user SPRKPLG (aka “Mario M”), the two cameras are designed to be compact and lightweight, while allowing you to shoot with any Mamiya Press, Super 23 and Universal Press compatible lenses. And best of all, both cameras are open source, released under the Creative Commons license.

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Olympus confirms the sale of its imaging business to JIP has completed

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A journey that started long before it was announced, with many rumours, has now come to completion. Olympus has announced that the transfer of its imaging division to Japan Industrial Partners, Inc. (JIP) is all done and dusted. Its imaging business now belongs to OM Digital Solutions, a subsidiary of JIP, which now controls the OM and Zuiko brands.

The announcement from Olympus states that the transition was concluded as of January 1st, 2021. Shigemi Sugimoto has been named as the President and CEO of OM Digital Solutions and that its business will be “digital cameras, interchangeable lenses, IC recorders, etc. centred on mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras”.

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NiSi’s getting into the mirrorless lens market and the first photos have leaked

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Two images have leaked of an upcoming lens that appears to be from filter-maker NiSi. One image shows the lens mounted to what looks like the Sony A7R III, while the other has it sitting on a Fujifilm body of some kind, possibly the Fuji X-E3.

Not much is shown about the new lens, except that it’s made by NiSi, has a maximum aperture of f/4, with a distance scale behind the focusing ring. It also appears to be a fixed focal length lens, as there are only two dials for the aperture & focus. No zoom.

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How to build your own DIY orbiting camera rig with a twist

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Sometimes, you just need a spinning camera that orbits around your subject for a video. There are many really fancy, expensive, customised and automated rigs out there that will let you do this costing a whole lot of money. But sometimes, you just want to go the DIY route with grip gear that you possibly already own.

The folks at Threefold needed a way to shoot a cool shot idea to film a promo for a planner called Evertide. So they built an orbiting rig just out of a bunch of grip gear they already had laying around. The twist, in this case, though, is that instead of spinning around a subject horizontally like we may be used to, it rotates on the vertical plane, going up and over the subject.

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How to make your own DIY pinhole camera for 35mm film using a matchbox

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Coming to you from the guys at COOPH, here are two ways to make and shoot with a pinhole camera. The first is analogue. Yes, that’s right, it uses 35mm film, the construction is as cheap and simple as it gets. All you need is a matchbox, a fresh roll of film, an empty film spool, an empty drinks can, some thin card and a whole mess of electrical tape.

The second method is for interchangeable lens cameras and can work for either 35mm SLRs or DSLRs (or mirrorless cameras) and essentially just converts your standard camera body cap into a pinhole lens for your camera.

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How to make a LIDAR driven motorized film carrier

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Despite what some people think about LIDAR for cars, in the near future it is foreseeable that this technology will take its rightful place in our daily lives. Not just for cars but with almost anything and everything. We have already seen Apple’s new iPad and iPhone utilizing this technology. I wanted to see if I could use a LIDAR, in its most fundamental function, on a film carrier that is printed on a 3D printer.

After using Espon’s v600 and v700, and DigitaLIZA from lomography, I wanted to make a versatile film carrier that would help digitize film negatives faster and better. We hardly notice it but camera sensors are among the fastest scanners readily available to us. Captured images are read line after line out from a sensor at a rate that even makes 120 frames per second videos possible. And this feature is becoming more mainstream. In addition, the resolution and colour quality that these sensors typically provide are quite amazing today. Therefore, making a film carrier that utilizes these sensors for purpose of digitizing film negatives makes more and more sense when compared to scanners made a decade ago.

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Anamorfake: achieve the anamorphic look with a $35 vintage lens

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The anamorphic look comes with a price, even if you buy an anamorphic lens that’s considered affordable. So if you’re on a tight budget, you can (anamor)fake it ‘til you make it. In this video, Mark Holtze will show you how to achieve the anamorphic look with a $35 vintage Helios lens.

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2020 was s**t, but here are some of the things that didn’t send me into a spiraling depression

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2020 has been a strange year. It’s been a difficult one for all of us and for some more than others. It’s been a challenge at times to look on the bright side and think of the good and fun stuff that’s happened in the world around us.

These aren’t in any particular order, but here are some of my favourite stories from this year that have made me laugh, smile, be inspired or have made me want to fire up the 3D printer or pull out the soldering iron.

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