There are plenty of good reasons why even the big TV and movie companies made the leap to digital cameras. The most obvious reason is that shooting on film is wildly expensive, but designer Yuta Ikeya has found a way to make these cameras more affordable: make them at home.
Shooting on film, as complicated, cumbersome and expensive as it is, also has a strange charm. That is the reason why some filmmakers even today opt for those formats for some very specific projects. What Yuta has achieved is one of the most fascinating alternative film projects I’ve seen lately. Virtually every component of the analog camera he has created has come out of a 3D printer. Obviously there are some that are impossible to print, such as the optical and electronic parts. The camera has a motor to move the film, a power supply with batteries, and an Arduino board to control the entire process. The lenses and the mirror have been taken from an old camera.
Ikeya has also opted for some decisions made to lower costs. His camera shoots on 35-millimeter C-41 film, which is an easier-to-find standard and much cheaper than what professional film costs. To record the very short footage that appears in the video of him, the designer has used two rolls of HP5 + film mounted on a system completely designed and manufactured by himself.
The result is full of artifacts and has a really weird frame rate, but considering where it came from, and that it was taken with a 100% homemade camera, it’s impressive. It would be great if this maker decides to upload his camera blueprints so the community can work on it and make improvements.[[Yuta Ikeya]
