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  • Author Author: Matt
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Modding a Super 8 Camera into a Digital One -- Episode 382

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One mans trash is a makers treasure! Clem found a super8 camera in the trash, and soon realised that the original analogue films and the processing is crazy expensive nowadays. So he creates a drop in replacement for the film cartridge that turns the super8 camera into a digital one! But that is easier said than done!

Clem's Frequently Asked Questions

Why is the image quality so bad compared to modern cameras?

This super 8 camera is 47 years old. The films originally used were very light sensitive (much more than any modern sensor that could fit in there) and even with the correct film home videos filmed in super 8 looked like that. The lens is what determines picture quality for the most part. if you want to see the difference a lens makes check out videos on my personal channel (http://youtube.com/mayermakes) and watch some the oldest and newest videos those were shot with the exact same camera(Nikon D3300) but with different lenses(old: Kit lens f4.5, new Nikkor 35mm prime lens f1.8) and more light. you may understand it better if you see it for yourself.

So the look of the footage I've taken with the Super8 camera is pretty authentic for "1970s home video". that is just how it was when your Parents were young, or even grandparents depending on how old you are.

Couldn't you just remove the lens of the picam and put it directly in place of the film?

No.Tried that in multiple version, but no the focal distance and the sensor width are extremely different, you can only get a blotch of light by doing that+ you can't even get to the exact same plane because of parts that would hold the original film and should not be damaged. 

How did you get it to focus then?

Extended the picam lens to near maximum and found a position that allowed me to get alignment with the shutter by trial and error, focused to UE and pushed back and forth until the image was mostly sharp. this ended up being a position multiple centimetres back which resulted in the need to extend the case.


Why the big case?

See above + I damaged multiple flat flex cables when fitting everything in the tiny version ,with only a day left until deadline i had to make sure that won't happen again + easier to install the buttons.

Will you do another version?

I plan to but It may be  a longer term project with dedicated self developed hardware.

if you would like to see that leave it in the comments below.

Supplemental Images and Links:

-  Episode 382 Resource Files  

-  Super 8 Camera Digitizer -- Episode 505  

{gallery} My Gallery Title

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Bill of Material:

 

Part

Raspberry Pi 3A+

 Raspberry Pi 1 Buy Now

Raspberry Pi Camera

 Raspberry Pi 1 Buy Now
Adafruit powerboost 1000 Adafruit 1 Buy Now
Tactile Switch, B3F Series, Top Actuated, Through Hole, Round Button, 100 gf, 50mA at 24VDC OMRON 1 Buy Now
Signal Relay, 3 VDC, DPDT, 1 A, TQ Series, Through Hole, Non Latching Panasonic 1 Buy Now
METAL FILM RESISTOR, 1KOHM, 500mW, 1% TT Electroniks Welwyn 1 Buy Now
LED, Red, Through Hole, 5mm, 20 mA, 1.8 V, 643 nm MULTICOMP 1 Buy Now
molex Board Connector FFC / FPC Board 1 mm, 15 Contacts, Receptacle, Easy-On 52610, Surface Mount molex 2 Buy Now
molex Premo Flex Jumper FFC / FPC Cable, 14 Core, 1 mm, Same Sided Contacts, 12 ", 305 mm, White molex 1 Buy Now

 

Additional Parts

Product Name

Stranded Wire

Used Super 8 camera

Kodak Super 8 Film cartridge for Size and Position Reference

3D printed Case and Buttons (files are available for download)

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Modding a Super 8 Camera into a Digital One

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  • in reply to beacon_dave

    I think there is a market for special snesor/lens combos for the pi and other sbcs, for example IR vision, extremely wide lenses for security cam projects or machinevision, macros for inspection and research projects, like cell tracking (our VCP Enrico did a project on this topic).

     

    Maybe if i can roll this into a purpose built hardware it comes with the option for such lenses.

  • in reply to mayermakes

    The areas I was thinking of were mainly lower cost ways of:

     

    • Getting better 'followcam' camera solutions for web conferencing apps. Most are expecting a USB web cam however most USB web cameras aren't as flexible as even a low cost camcorder. Few camcorders declare if they support USB webcam functionality. HDMI or HD-SDI to USB convertors are still costly. It would be great to get a low cost USB webcam type solution that you can stick on a tripod and have ergonomic lens control over focus, iris, zoom to frame your shots.

     

    • Similar to above but for live streaming applications, so instead of a USB output a RTMP/RTSP/SRT stream or similar over IP to a Wowza streaming server or to YouTube / Facebook. Camcorders with live stream functionality are still relatively expensive, as are external encoders.

     

    • As above but for static camera applications. The ability to use a close-up lens for monitoring a science experiment or machine vision type scenario. I have used low end AXIS M10xx series CCTV cameras for this in the past on incubators but the lenses are fixed and not really suited to the job even though the electronics for streaming is adequate. Point Grey have some high end USB machine vision stuff but rather expensive for some education activities.

     

    • As above but for where you want to be able to deploy a large number of static cameras to live stream a larger event in conjunction with higher end equipment. Perhaps you need 25 to 50 simultaneous streams to give a general wide coverage overview of an event, with a 2 or 3 higher end roving streaming camcorders doing the interviews. A R-Pi with a camera module in a 3D printed housing with an appropriate lens arrangement would likely get the job done at a relatively low cost.