from Hacker News

Show HN: The Leica MPi: A Leica M2 with a Raspberry Pi-Powered Digital Sensor

by psychomugs on 5/12/23, 11:25 AM with 44 comments

• by jeswin on 5/13/23, 9:58 AM

  This is a somewhat overcrowded area of experimentation. In fact there's even an article written about it - "Stop Trying To Turn Film Cameras Into Digital Cameras" [1]

  The real problem is that sensors available to hobbyists are quite low-end. They can just make bad digital pics; losing both the magic of film and the fidelity of digital. Old film lenses are only usable if you get a crop factor of 2x (m4/3 size) or less, so that you can use a 40mm (as found in many inexpensive rangefinders such as the Electro 35) as an 80mm - not great for typical use but usable.

  I am actually quite surprised why in all these years, no one has made somewhat affordable ($100-400) larger sensors available for the hobbyist market. Given that there are a couple of small Chinese manufacturers making m4/3 bodies, it's surprising that no one is servicing this small (but not necessarily unviable) market. More likely is the availability of a 1" sensor at a much lower cost since ~1" sensors have started appearing on phones. That'd make a wide 24mm lens a 65mm normal lens. That would be on the far end of usable, but anything smaller is just a stale experiment for the wider audience. But of course - any experiment can be quite rewarding for whoever is doing it.

  [1]: https://casualphotophile.com/2022/05/19/digi-swap-im-back-re...

• by nibbleshifter on 5/13/23, 8:44 AM

  That filter he removed is the IR cut, I believe. Not an anti aliasing filter.

  The magenta hue you see in the outdoor shots is characteristic of photos taken using a sensor with no IR blocking filter (also known as a hot mirror).

• by inetsee on 5/12/23, 6:47 PM

  I really liked this article until I went out and looked at how much Leica M2s cost. The project may only cost $100 in Raspberry Pi parts, but it looks like acquiring a Leica M2 can cost thousands of dollars.

• by raihansaputra on 5/13/23, 9:01 AM

  Love this. Due to the rising costs of film lots of people are switching to older, CCD sensor digital pocket/prosumer cameras. They produce great photos in good lighting (ISO200-400, like film). The sensor quality and "raw" image is good, but they're held back by the old processing hardware. I wish it's easier to hack these older sensors to newer boards/hardware for better control/output. Even an ESP32 would be an upgrade to the older processing boards I guess.

• by Clamchop on 5/12/23, 9:10 PM

  I've daydreamt before of a device, sensor attached by thin film ribbon cable to a faux film canister holding the computery bits. A general fit solution to film camera conversion. But, sensor thickness and power source may be intractable problems.

  Cool project!

• by ggm on 5/12/23, 11:33 AM

  It would have been nice if some of the example photos were less post produced, and had the kind of reference image quality dpreview used to use, so we can see how leica compatible lenses and the 12megapixel CCD interact.

  It's significantly smaller than a 35mm film area, it should avoid some of the lens edge spherical abberation and coma issues but also has less light falling on it maybe.

  It looked to be fixed shutter speed variable aperture? Tying it to the flash trigger event was smart, if I recall correctly flash tended to fixed shutter speed for logical reasons.

  Great project. I loved how it was non destructive.

• by hypertexthero on 5/13/23, 1:40 PM

  Beautiful project, and beautiful photographs!

  I’m glad about the plan to open source it, and hope an M3 version comes along, too.

• by glitchc on 5/13/23, 2:09 PM

  An old DSLR is probably about the same price when time and effort are factored in. Why not just buy one?