This shrunken Gameboy Mini Camera is the size of a game cartridge

The Game Boy Camera has seen a rise in popularity of late. Its low-quality retro images seem to inspire creativity in those that can get their hands on one. A lot of people have even come up with modifications for it to add functionality that didn’t exist before. We’ve seen it turned into a webcam, modified to take external lenses for sports, macro and astrophotography.

This modification by Christopher Graves at Game Boy Camera takes that original Game Boy Camera, replaces its lens with one from an iPhone and packages it up into a new enclosure no bigger than a standard-sized Game Boy game cartridge.

If Christopher’s name sounds familiar, that’s because he also created the Camera M, converting a Game Boy and Game Boy Camera into a more traditional-style camera. His new conversion only modifies and rehouses the camera and lets you plug it into a standard Game Boy.

Videoooo – just ignore any embarrassing bits pls k thx pic.twitter.com/ux5mKmcII9

— @gameboycamera@glitch.lgbt (@thegameboycam) June 30, 2023

Christopher’s Game Boy Mini Camera uses the guts of the original Game Boy Camera. But he’s placed them onto his own, custom all-in-one PCB that fits inside a regular Game Boy game cartridge style enclosure. The lens, obviously, looks a little different to that of the original Game Boy Camera. That’s because those lens elements come from an iPhone XR. This lets the glass stick out a mere 1.5mm, rather than the massive ball of the original.

The original Game Boy Camera was released in a quarter of a century ago, in 1998, and manufacturing ceased in 2002. It’s estimated to have sold 60 million units worldwide in that time. So, it’s not much of a surprise that there are still quite a few still around today. Even by 1998 standards, the quality of images it produced wasn’t very good, so there are likely still hundreds of thousands lying in the back of a drawer or in a box somewhere, forgotten about for the past 20-25 years.

It houses a tiny 0.1-megapixel sensor, offering only 128 x 128 pixels. It’s also black and white. But we’re not talking Leica Monochrom here. It’s only capable of capturing black, white and two shades of grey in between. It’s a very unique look amongst the types of images that digital cameras have produced over the years.

Some pics of the cart in the @analogue Pocket for folks that expressed interest #AnaloguePocket #GameBoyCamera #GameBoyMods pic.twitter.com/d4v56f4SaK

— @gameboycamera@glitch.lgbt (@thegameboycam) July 1, 2023

Christopher runs Game Boy Camera, where he posts about his projects, modifications and the images he creates with them. He hasn’t listed the new Game Boy Mini Camera for sale in his store, and it looks like he doesn’t plan on selling it as it was a personal project. It won’t become available as a ready-made kit, but it’s believed that Christopher intends to release the plans at some point so that people can have a go at making their own.

Although this might be quite a modest final result, it’s a pretty extreme modification of the original unit. It’s great to see the Game Boy Camera isn’t being left behind in the current retro tech revolution!

[via TechRadar]