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How 3D printed camera equipment can make your life easier

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I think it’s a pretty safe bet that 3D printing is now well and truly here to stay. They’re no longer just the DIY custom built passions of hardcore makers. Now, anybody can get buy a 3D printer, or at least get access to one. They’re mainstream now. There’s entire online communities around their use with tips, advice, reviews and all kinds of other stuff.

But did you know there’s a whole host of photography related equipment and doohickies you can 3D print to make your life easier? No, neither did I. It’s been a while since I last took a tour around Thingiverse, and a lot has been added since then. This video from the guys at The Film Look goes through some of the more useful items they’ve 3D printed.

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How a student created his own 3D printed medium format panoramic camera

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Paul Kohlhaussen, a student from Richmond in London has created a fully functioning 3D printed camera. Paul took the best features from an array of costly high-end cameras and reverse engineered them into the camera of his dreams. Without the funds to afford the camera he needed to get the perfect shot he wanted and no knowledge of CAD, Paul taught himself everything from scratch when designing and building the eight components that make up the camera’s modular design.

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This 60 cent ring can prevent your lens from getting stolen

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Modern cameras allow photographers to remove and change the lens fast, using only one hand. Unfortunately, it also makes it easier for thieves to steal the lenses directly off the camera. This is why photographer Rutger Geerling created Mark’s Lens Safe. It’s an accessory that protects the release button of your camera, making it impossible to remove the lens with one hand. He created it as an open source design for 3D printers, so everyone can download and print it for their camera.

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These images may look like CG renders, but they’re actually photographs

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In a world where many CG artists are aiming for photorealism, one very skilled photographer seems to be going the opposite way. These images look like something straight out of 3DS Max or Blender. They’re not, though. They’re actually very carefully designed photographs, created by Norwegian design duo Lars Marcus Vedeler and Theo Zamudio-Tveterås at their studio, Skrekkøgle.

Looking at the final work is pretty surreal, and if nobody ever told you that they weren’t CG renders, you’d never be able to tell. In a way, it kind of makes you redefine “photorealism”. I mean, these are photos, so if your renders look like this, they’re photorealistic now, right?

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The Dobot M1 is the maker’s best friend

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On my last visit to China I was invited to review quite an interesting product – a robotic arm. This has nothing to do with photography and everything to do with making. If you are here for the photography tips, move along, there is nothing to see. If you wanna see a kickass robot read on.

The arm is called the Dobot M1 and is curently a tad short of 300% funding on kickstarter. I would not necessarily call this a review. Think of it more as a hybrid between first impressions and a peek into the future.

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Inventor helps young photographer to be able to take photographs again

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Many of us take photography for granted. Whether it’s a big fancy DSLR or the phone in our pocket, Photography is part of our daily lives. For some, that simple pleasure of just hitting the shutter isn’t so easy. One such person is James Dunn. James, now 23, from Whiston, England, has a potentially-terminal skin condition which prevents him from being able to use a camera.

James has Epidermolysis bullosa, a genetic disorder which causes his skin to be extremely fragile. Prone to blistering and in constant pain, James’ fingers started to fuse together when he was only 10 years old. Now, thanks to the BBC series The Big Life Fix and inventor Jude Pullen, James once again has the ability to pursue his passion.

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This 3D printed lens produces amazing results

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In the past, the thought of making your own lens would probably seem like a fairly impossible mission. For most of us, it still seems pretty out of reach. Not for determined photographer and weird lens master, Mathieu Stern, though, who created his own 3D printed lens.

Making your own 135mm f/1.8 has to come with a pretty huge sense of accomplishment already. Upon first using it and seeing the results, though, you can’t really fail to be impressed. Obviously, the lens is manual focus, and doesn’t feature any fancy features like image stabilisation, but I think we can let that slide.

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SLO: The 3D printed 35mm film camera

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I’ve always assumed a camera should be impartial. Sharp and bright, lacking consideration or mystery, randomness or error. Lately we’re asked to apply a filter to add a gloss of emotion after the fact.

Analog photography takes the sense of a moment and turns it into a tangible image. My 3D printer turns the content of my thoughts into real shape and form. I wanted to know if there’s a more authentic photograph to be found at the intersection of design and photography – so I set out to make a camera with only a 3D printer.

The result is the SLO, whereby the act of recording a moment expands to include the creation of the recorder. SLO is a single lens objective. SLO is the mechanical shutter. SLO is the speed of good design, and the feeling of capturing life with a camera you made yourself.

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This new camera lens is as small as a grain of salt

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Everything seems to be getting smaller and smaller these days. Cameras and lenses don’t seem to be immune to this phenomenon, despite some cameras pushing for bigger.  Of course, there’s no real right or wrong when it comes to the size of your camera, just whether or not it will do the job.

One of those jobs for cameras is medical, and scientists at the University of Stuttgart are really taking it to the extreme in a new paper published in Nature Photonics, producing lenses that are 120 millionths of a meter in diameter.

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How to shoot super detailed macro photographs with the help of an Arduino and a bunch of LEDs

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This is one of those topics that can become extremely complicated very quickly, but if you have a love of macro photography and a passion for electronics, this could be just the project to get you fired up.

Using a process called “Reflectance Transformation Imaging” (RTI), whereby light is studied hitting the surface of an object from multiple angles to produce a sequence of images, we’re suddenly able to see a lot of detail that would otherwise be missed in our normal macro photography.

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