My First Analog Movie Camera
2021
[engineering]
Description
A proof of concept of an analogue motion picture camera that is lightweight, affordable, easy to use. Yuta Ikeya designed this product to be the first step into the world of analogue film making.
The project was initiated by Yuta Ikeya’s interest in analog cinematography. He decided to build a camera by himself to casually try out the experience of analog film making using ordinary photographic 35mm film. The user splices photographic 35mm film to make a longer strip and load it in a dedicated cartridge to shoot short footage. By using easily available film (C-41) instead of professional motion picture film (ECN-2), the entire process is much easier to get started with.
The internal mechanism is synchronized with gears and a cam driven by a single DC motor. The motor is controlled by Arduino. The light coming from the lens is split by the half mirror before the rotary shutter, allowing the shooter to see the real time image through the view finder. This decreases the amount of light projected on the film, but it can be compensated by the high ISO of high speed films. For this functional prototype, almost all the components are 3D printed in reinforced PLA.