The Lux Is A Beautiful Waist Level 120 Camera, You Can Build It Too

Lux is a work of beauty. This velvet looking camera is a has a waist level viewfinder and it shoots 120 film. Made by Kevin Kadooka it is 100% open source with everything up for improvement and modification, from the 3D printed body, to the electronic shutter (powered by Arduino) ending with the brilliant view finder.

You may recall Kevin from his wonderful Duo TLR which ended up as a successful Kickstarter project.

This time he is making a fully open-sourced camera and no need for backing to get one. You can build your own with the electronics and 3d files openly available.

The camera itself is beautiful black with a brilliant viewfinder and a sexy shutter button (that can glow in red light)

The camera breaks into four parts per Kevin’s open-sources and makerability vision: “…part of being open-source, in my opinion, is for it to be easily modified or repaired. As such, the unit shouldn’t be hermetically sealed with glue, anti-tamper screws, etc. Lux splits into four segments, with nuts and bolts so that it can be easily modified.”

To facilitate framing, the camera is equipped with a brilliant viewfinder.

And photos are taken with a Single Leaf Shutter controlled by an Arrduino

The vision from Kevin is to make a 100% DIYable camera: Lux is my proof-of-concept platform for my new electronic shutter (see SLS, single leaf shutter). A secondary goal for this camera was to make it completely homegrown, meaning no parts from existing camera manufacturers, only using single-element lenses from Anchor Optics.

Here are some scanned pictures taken with the Lux:

[Lux, Source Files | Kevin Kadooka]

Kevin

All of the necessary files are posted on my website, but Flickr removed it thinking that it’s spam 🙁

http://kekado.zapto.org/kevin/open.html
- udi tirosh
  
  Thanks Kevin, I added those to the post 🙂
- paul beard needs a gig.
  
  I’m very interested in the shutter, as that seems to be the missing component in a lot of things I would like to see made. If we can get a reliable iris shutter controlled like that, I’d like to hear about it.
Tam Webb

Any plans to kickstart this camera too? For those of us without access to a 3D printer?
- Kevin
  
  No plans to kickstart this camera, hence it is an open source project. I don’t have access to a 3D printer either, but there are a myriad of services willing to do 3D printing for you!
  - Fajro
    
    Then you could try crowdfunding it with http://goteo.org (they only fund free open source projects)
  - Tam Webb
    
    I have access to a 3D printer! Now to find the time 🙂
- chuison
  
  The web link is broken. I tried to contact Kevin but it was impossible. Anyone have the plans and diagrams of the camera. Thank you. My email is chuison.alvarez@gmail.es
Eric Dye

Does anyone know approximately how much all the parts and getting the printing done would cost?
- Kevin
  
  As with most one-off’s, more than you might think. 3D printing alone cost just under $300.
  - Eric Dye
    
    eh well I was almost expecting that I suppose