Notices by Trevor Flowers (trevorflowers@machines.social), page 2

Maybe with one of the new wave of little boards that pair a SoC with a ML accelerator. They're mostly targeted at IoT but a camera can be a T on the I, right?
https://www.hackster.io/news/ov-tech-s-pi-mx8-offers-a-raspberry-pi-compute-module-4-alternative-with-on-board-ai-acceleration-4a377e1fdb7b

I'm waiting on a few deliveries of parts so my mind is turning to the software running during photo shoots. I'm leaning toward writing it on top of pygame (https://www.pygame.org/wiki/about) as it has reasonable camera support and a healthy menu lib (https://pygame-menu.readthedocs.io/). Pygame can write directly to a linux framebuffer displayed via a SPI- or 8bit bus-driven display panel.

The initial control hardware is:
📸 480w320h 3.5" TFT with touch (https://www.adafruit.com/product/5846)
📸 Pi Zero 2 W running Pi OS Lite (https://www.adafruit.com/product/5291)
📸 Wearing an EyeSPI and I2C port hat (https://www.adafruit.com/product/5783)
📸 Pi Cam v2 (https://www.adafruit.com/product/3099) though a better module is in transit
📸 Powered by 3.7V 4400mAh LIon batts (https://www.adafruit.com/product/354)
📸 A charge and boost board (https://www.adafruit.com/product/2465)

Here's the shell filled with a RPi. a couple of 18650 cells, cheap-o speaker and mic modules, a 2.7" diagonal touchscreen, and a sensor module that takes up roughly the shape of an APS-C sensor and a lens mount compatible with the Sony emount lenses. I'll need to add in a charger/booster board, cable ports, etc but these are the big space-fillers. The transparent rods will be steel tapped on either end and the internal modules will be fixed to them. The top and bottom plates are laser cut metal.

Ok, here's where my head is on the topic of an open vlogger's camera. I've designed a shell that will fit a variety of SBCs, sensor & lens combos, custom input systems, power sources, and rear display panels. The FreeCAD source file is to a large extent parametrically driven so that the shell can be rearranged for different dimensions without too much fuss. The idea is to take care of the fiddly camera bits and make it easily hackable for personal preferences.
#mdc #openHardware #FreeCAD

I used those internal parts as an example because that's what I happen to have in stock but the idea is that the shell can be repurposed without too much futzing for entirely different components up and down the quality and capability spectrum. There are a metric boatload of companies who sell sensor & lens packages that can, with a bit of CAD work and sometimes a custom adapter board, integrate into this setup. Perhaps we can adapt some of the Apertus modules. It's an open field.

It blows me away that for ~$20 I can get a generally available image sensor capable of producing HD video. That's the single unit price, too. I'm sure it's not the best video but dang that's still kind of amazing.
https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/onsemi/AR0330CM1C21SHKA0-CR/5321546

I started a Hackaday project to track what I'm certain will be sporadic progress on this camera. I named it "My Dang Camera" (#mdc) because I enjoy open hardware that I own instead of the physical projections of hypercorps into my life. It's all mine mine mine! 😺
Also, I want to learn more about hackable camera sensor and lens standards so a modular and mutable camera body seems like a good start down that road.
#openHardware #mechatronics
https://hackaday.io/project/194160-my-dang-camera

Modern MCU dev boards are so dang powerful and have snazzy power management so I'm pretty sure I could put a little one in there, hook it up to a short focal length sensor module like the HQ RPi cam, and then fill the rest of the space with batteries and storage to create a camera that rarely needs to be charged or emptied. Or we could make it a network-centric device for streamers. Or, or, or....
I want the outer form to be specific enough to be good but open enough to be a personal fav.

It just occurred to me that I could put a VUI in this thing and train it to go hard on my photos.
me: *snaps pic of squirrel in tree*
mdc: "Come now, not only is that a trite subject but your framing is ridiculous. Shall I fix it for you?"

First dry fit!
I'm waiting on a few deliveries of metal parts and a camera sensor + lens module but I'm impatient so I printed the metal parts in PLA and used carpet tape to fit everything in place. The front blue panel has a Pi cam v2 taped into it as a placeholder until better hw arrives.
#mdc #3DPrinting #photography

TIL about OpenTimelineIO, a JSON syntax for interchange of video editor timelines. Now I want a function on my camera that moves all of the currently stored photos and video to my NAS and emits a chronological timeline of those files that I can import into kdenlive.
https://opentimelineio.readthedocs.io/

Apparently, Overture TPU and the X1C nicely play together which is sweet because I'm tired of the gaps in my camera where the rubbery nubbies should be.
I ordered a few kinds of buttons to find the most satisfyingly clicky clicks to fit under the TPU covers. Also, a 5 position rotary switch is on its way to become the mode chooser: photo, video, review, livestream, upload (I think). I already have a little five-way momentary switch (l, r, u, d, click) for menu nav.
#mdc #3DPrinting #shopLife

There's a RPi 5 in there but I might end up making my own custom board that uses less current and provides a better arrangement of ports and storage for this case. Because what's a quick project without the urge to balloon out the work to consume every moment of my time?

If you're interested in half-baked FreeCAD and KiCAD designs for an open af vlogger's camera then head over to codeberg where I've posted a snaphot of the current design files. Anyone who wants a working camera should definitely wait for a release (if I make it that far) but if you're a gluten for punishment then have at it.
#mdc #FreeCAD #KiCAD #photography
https://codeberg.org/trevorflowers/my-dang-cam

Nick Bild at hackster.io, writer of many pun headlines, has nicely covered my damn camera.
https://www.hackster.io/news/i-did-it-my-way-67e8fbf0c8d6

It just occurred to me that since I'm writing the software and the camera will be on a network I can probably make it dang easy to directly post to PixelFed and other fediverse services.
One related topic is that many of the SBCs that I want to try are powerful enough to host web sites. It could be pretty neat to have a camera that is its own PixelFed instance. Hard on the batteries, tho.

The rear input panel will have:
📸 a five way input nubbie (https://www.adafruit.com/product/504)
📸 three tactile buttons
The top input panel will have:
📸 a six position mode dial
📸 an on/off slide switch.
Both panels will be covered by printed TPU layers with text and iconography.

One could probably make an interesting #mdc style camera with this ESP32 + display combo. Put it in the flip-around display module and the entire main body shell would be available for batteries, storage, imaging sensors, other sensors like accelerometers, nice microphones and speakers, and whatever other silly thing comes into one's head.
Me.
I'm the one.
But not for V1.
https://www.cnx-software.com/2023/12/27/lilygo-t4-s3-board-2-41-inch-amoled-touchscreen-display-esp32-s3r8/

Apparently YT has figured me out because now it's digging up all of the camera hackers making weird decisions about photons. Check out this wild "scanner camera" that uses a linear CCD sensor from a document scanner.
https://youtu.be/MPhY1VS-wdQ