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The Sitina S1 Photograph: Wenting Zhang |
Right here at DPReview, we love DIY images initiatives, and one not too long ago got here to our consideration that we simply needed to share.
Boston-based engineer and photographer Wenting Zhang has been experimenting with DIY electronics for over a decade and likewise loves taking images, so constructing his personal digital camera was a pure extension of those pursuits.
“I initially had the thought of constructing my very own digital camera throughout center faculty. Again then, I wasn’t allowed to make use of my mother and father’ digital camera and could not afford an actual digital camera. I naively thought it will be attainable, and cheaper, if I simply constructed one myself,” Zhang informed DPReview. His preliminary try did not go properly, and he ultimately saved sufficient to purchase a used Nikon D90, however the itch to construct his personal digital camera stayed. Every time he noticed somebody posting a couple of DIY digital camera challenge, he thought, “If different folks can pull that off, I ought to have the ability to as properly.”
Zhang says he began the challenge in 2017, and it isn’t completed but. “Engineers are often dangerous at estimating how lengthy issues will take. I’m most likely significantly dangerous at that. I anticipated this challenge to be difficult, so it will take a bit longer, like most likely one yr. Turned out my estimation was off,” he says.
He makes clear to level out that it is a pastime challenge, purely for enjoyable, and that his digital camera is not going to attain the extent of picture high quality present in commercially obtainable merchandise from established corporations. Regardless of that, his challenge gives an interesting look into what’s concerned in constructing a digital camera from the bottom up. What’s extra, Zhang has open-sourced his total challenge on GitLab for anybody else who would possibly wish to construct upon it.
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Zhang took this picture with a monochrome model of the Sitina, which makes use of the identical sensor however with out the Bayer shade filter array. Photograph: Wenting Zhang |
Though CMOS has turn out to be the dominant sensor expertise in client cameras, owing to components like pace, decrease energy consumption and price, Zhang’s digital camera is constructed round a 10MP Kodak KAI-11000CM CCD sensor with a worldwide digital shutter, which he chosen for a moderately pragmatic cause: it was simple to source. “Most producers (like Sony) aren’t going to simply promote a sensor to a random hobbyist, so I’ve to purchase no matter is on the market on eBay. This 10MP CCD turned out to be obtainable,” he explains.
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Zhang attaches the CCD sensor to his warmth sink. Photograph: Wenting Zhang |
The selection of sensor has a helpful profit. As he explains in one in every of his movies, designing and constructing a mechanical shutter is difficult and past his space of experience, so his DIY design relies on utilizing an digital shutter. For comparable causes, he selected to make use of an LCD display screen as a viewfinder moderately than a prism-based optical design, leading to a mirrorless digital camera.
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Photograph captured with the Sitina S1. Photograph: Wenting Zhang |
Zhang wished his design to be suitable with current lenses. His mirrorless design, with a brief flange distance, supplied quite a lot of flexibility to adapt completely different lenses to the digital camera, and he is at the moment utilizing E-mount with lively electrical contacts.
And that is simply the beginning. Zhang additionally wanted to combine a CCD sign processor with an ADC (analog to digital converter), a CPU, battery, an LCD display screen and buttons. He additionally designed and constructed his personal circuit board with a power-only USB port, flash sync terminal, energy button and SD card slot, and create the software program and consumer interface to tie all of it collectively.
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As a way to construct his digital camera, Zhang needed to design and print his personal circuit boards. Picture: Wenting Zhang |
Lastly, every part matches inside a 3D-printed enclosure that, to my eye, appears moderately enticing.
As for the digital camera’s identify, the Sitina S1? “I merely put the phrase ‘silicon’ and ‘retina’ collectively to kind the phrase ‘sitina’. I haven’t got any higher concepts of naming the digital camera mannequin, so I merely name it the ‘Sitina S1’, he explains. “However the identify might change sooner or later if I ever have higher concepts.”
Zhang was form sufficient to share some images from his DIY ‘for enjoyable’ digital camera.
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| Images: Wenting Zhang |
Now that he is constructed his personal digital camera, Zhang has an appreciation for the way a lot work goes into the design, growth and optimization of a contemporary client digital camera. “I’d think about it will take a military of designers and engineers of varied disciplines to construct a contemporary client digital camera,” he says. “There are such a lot of completely different elements however few ‘off the shelf’ elements.”
“On prime of the {hardware}, we nonetheless have layers of software program. There is no normal digital camera working system (like Android or Home windows) so every vendor is growing its personal OS. On prime of the OS, you could have picture processing algorithms the place every vendor most likely has their very own secret sauce for higher shade, decrease noise, and many others. I believe it is fairly unimaginable that digital camera distributors are capable of do all these items in-house.”
Zhang continues to be working to deal with points in his present prototype. “I believe in one other yr or two it may attain a state the place it may be a useable and helpful digital camera. I do want to promote the digital camera both as a package folks can put collectively or as an assembled machine. Not for revenue, however so folks can play with it, and my effort on this challenge will not go to waste.”
If you happen to’re curious to study extra about how a digital camera is constructed, I encourage you to observe each of Zhang’s movies of their entirety as he goes into nice element concerning the course of. And, when you have the technical expertise and curiosity to strive the sort of DIY challenge your self, his open source challenge could possibly be invaluable. I will be the primary to confess it goes past my stage of engineering know-how, however I’d be first in line to order a Sitina digital camera DIY package if the chance arose.
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2024-10-04 13:00:00
Source hyperlink:https://www.dpreview.com/articles/0535447263/the-sitina-s1-how-a-determined-diy-photographer-built-his-own-full-frame-camera