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Nikon turns to space, investing $91,000,000 in aerospace 3D printing manufacturer Morf3D

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I was wondering what Nikon was going to do to keep itself alive with an ever-shrinking camera market that seems to be slowly but surely turning its back on the 103-year-old company in favour of Sony and Canon. Well, it turns out they’re investing in space. To be more specific, they’ve invested as the major shareholder in US startup Morf3D.

Morf3D is an additive manufacturing company supplying the aerospace industry, supplying companies like Boeing, and according to Nikkei Asia, the deal sees Nikon investing 10 billion yen (~$91 million) in the company, becoming a majority stakeholder. This puts Nikon in the supply change for small satellites, a growing market in the aerospace industry.

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This amazing stop motion film was made using 200 3D printed frogs

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Recently, I’ve been looking into picking up a resin 3D printer. Finally, yesterday, I caved and ordered myself an Anycubic Photon Mono, which should be arriving tomorrow. In preparation for its arrival, I spent yesterday evening searching YouTube for information about the printer, resin, software, problems I might run into and how to solve them, etc.

And then I stumbled across something very cool. An experimental stop motion film that utilises 200 frogs, 3D printed on the Anycubic Photon Mono X (the big brother to the one I’m getting). It was created by Tom Grigat at TOMs Modelling in Motion and it just looks amazing. He even included some behind the scenes of how it all came together.

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This huge DIY camera crane built with metal tubes and 3D printing has a very cool trick up its sleeve

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There are a lot of great tools out there for moving your camera these days, and there are plenty of more affordable options out there for most of them, too. Including camera cranes. So, why did Ivan Miranda decide to build his own? Well, when you break your tripod, need to replace it and have a whole bunch of large 3D printers at your disposal… Why not?

This is a pretty large build, as you can see from the thumbnail above and it’s very different to the one we saw from Alex Chappel a few months ago. Ivan’s is more of a traditional style crane, rather than the stand Alex built, but like Alex, Ivan utilised some metal tubes and 3D printing to turn his vision into a reality. And I think he pulled it off quite nicely.

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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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I designed my own 3D printed lens hoods because Nikon’s suck

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My dad was into photography. He was a professor at Illinois in Speech and Hearing Science and did a lot of research on cadavers. He did a lot of photography as part of his research, and also enjoyed photography outside work. He had a darkroom in his lab and I had access to that while I was in town.

I always kept a camera or two on hand but was not dedicated enough to build a darkroom in the house. I didn’t really do much with photography after graduating from college. As computers advanced through the years and image editing began to mature, it became clear that the digital darkroom would become a thing. I inherited my dad’s Nikon F4 and a few lenses when he died, so that kind of put me on the Nikon side of the fence.

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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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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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This Canon EF to RF tilt adapter only costs $3 to make

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Well, this is pretty awesome. At least, it is if you happen to own a Canon RF mount camera, some EF mount lenses and a 3D printer. While Canon’s busy coming up with their own adapters, and the competition is releasing theirs, the 3D printing community has been happily doing its own thing to satisfy their needs.

Like, Whomstevest, for example, who’s designed this 3D printable EF to RF tilt adapter. Yes, that’s aright, a lens adapter that converts your EF lens to fit on an RF body and it gives tilt capabilities!

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How to reproduce a $10,000 camera stand with a bit of DIY and a 3D printer

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We all know that some YouTubers are a little bit… “extra”. And Alexandre Chappel is no exception. I’ve been following Alexandre for a while now. He’s a maker, and often incorporates 3D printing into his creations. He also films all his videos in a permanent studio space within his workshop. This time, he’s turned his hand to something to help him shoot his videos.

Frustrated with his shooting workflow using standard video tripods, he wanted something a bit more versatile that would allow him more shooting options. What he really wanted was a Foba ASABA. But they cost almost $10,000 So, he had a go at building his own.

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This 3D printed doohicky lets you shoot split double exposures with the Instax Mini 90

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Split double exposures can be a lot of fun. They essentially involve covering half of the frame and taking a shot and then covering the other half of the frame and taking another – both shots contributing to a single exposure. There are all kinds of ways you can do them, and Lomography even includes a “Splitzer” tool for this with their wide-angle Lomo’Instant camera.

But what about other cameras? Photographer Guillermo Hernandez has designed one of his own for the Instax Mini 90 that he made using his 3D printer which lets you accomplish the task quite easily.

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