You have an analog camera that doesn't useswhat now? With the Raspberry Pi Zero you can very well turn it into a digital one.
Even if you are a fan of analog cameras, analog film is now a significant cost and hassle. For those of you who do not want to throw away your old analog camera, YouTuber befinitiv has found an interesting solution. take one Raspberry Pi Zero, combine it with a unit 5MP camera and put it all inside an old 35mm camera body.
It is a smart and effective hack that should not cost a lot of money. Befinitiv made a small round housing in the shape of a 35 mm photographic spool. Fit a Pi Zero, a battery and a 5MP camera sensor to this housing.
All together like a volume, they resemble the spool of a camera that, with the film spread, passes in front of the shutter and reaches the fixed spool.
When you open the camera shutter, the picture captured by the Raspberry Pi 5MP module. Using one function of the old camera (night shot), befinitiv can keep the camera shutter open indefinitely and take a video with the Pi. This video can be streamed directly to a computer using the Pi Zero's wireless capabilities, a very interesting feature.
Of course, this hack has some drawbacks. The 5MP sensor is smaller than the 35mm image coming through the lens, so videos look cropped or zoomed. Furthermore, it seems that the befinitiv cannot be drawn yet photos with this hack – synchronizing the Pi module with the analog camera shutter would definitely require a lot of work.
If you are interested in creating a digital camera from an old camera with a Pi Zero, then check out the video description of befinitiv on YouTube. There are links to the components of this build, as well as an easy-to-use CAD file.