Person Sensor Powered Paparazzi

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I’ve found a use for my broken camera collection. I’m going to create a “paparazzi machine” using a person sensor from Useful Sensors. The person sensor is a tiny camera with a processor which you connect to your microcontroller using i2c. It tells the number and position of faces that it can see in the frame.

The plan is to take one of my slightly less broken cameras (one with working lens movement) and put it on a mount that lets it move towards a face and then trigger when it sees someone in front of the camera. I’m going to use a Raspberry Pi PICO to control it. Should be fun.

Enter Player 3...

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you can get a Dial Lapel pin too

I’ve found a third Canon Dial 35 on sale in the UK. This one comes with the promise of a working mechanism and a faulty meter. Much excitement has ensued.

And, I’ve worked out why I like the camera so much. Unlike most cameras, the dial has its viewfinder on the left when viewed from the front. This means that when you put the camera to your eye, you are using your left eye. Which is really good news for me as my right eye really doesn’t do much.

I’m now back to waiting for the postman.

A working Canon Canonet

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This is becomming my test shot for new cameras…

I put a film into “Mr Sticky Shutter” today and took him to the University. He is one of my 20 cameras and he shows quite a bit of promise. His shutter is a bit sticky, but only at the slower speeds that I hardly ever use. But the good news is that he looks excellent and everything else, including the light meter, works fine. And, as you can see above, the lens is very sharp

Brickwork is very good for testing the detail that a lens can resolve

Not bad for a sixty year old camera

"Are we there yet" at Ferens Art Gallery

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Click the image to visit the gallery

If you are lucky enough to live in Hull you really should visit the exhibition they have on a the moment. It’s made up of a bunch of enormous inflatable sculptures plus a great mural and some splendid individual pieces. The detail and the imagination is fantastic, as are the bright colours. If you’ve got kids you should take them too. Well worth the trip. And you can nip to the gallery café for a sausage sandwich (and the best chips in Hull - which is saying something).

Adventures with a Changing Bag

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For the last few days I’ve been working on an article about using a Minox camera. I’ve managed to prove two things conclusively:

  1. You can 3D print a light tight cassette to hold Minox film.

  2. You do need to put something in the light trap to stop light getting onto the film.

This means I’ve been spending a while with my hands in a light-proof bag, rolling up film and putting it into tiny cassettes. I was happily doing this the other day when the doorbell rang. I was alone in the house at the time and half-way through a rather tricky cassette load, so I had to walk to the door with my hands in the black bag, find the keys and then open it to reveal two people who asked me if I wanted them to save my soul. Or something. I replied politely that I’d settle for having the films in the dark bag saved and bade them farewell.

I’m kind of hoping they will go back to base with tales of a strange, wild-eyed man who lives at our address and answers the door with his hands in a large black bag. With a bit of luck they’ll skip our house next time.

20 Camera Man

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..all photographed with a phone…

It turns out I’ve not bought 19 broken cameras. I’ve actually received 20. I’ve tested each one and they are all broken. I’ve given them all names.

  • Mr Sticky Shutter

  • No Rewind Boy

  • Just Dead

  • Weird battery guy

  • Stuckee

  • The Battery Flattener

  • The Dangly Back Kid

  • Sir NoClick

  • The one that winds forever

  • The one with the stuck frame counter

  • Flash but no trousers

  • Missing buttons

  • Shiny but bust

  • Only clicks, never whirrs

  • Nothing moves

  • Chinon less wonder

  • Is this the end of Ricoh?

  • T’would be nice if this worked

  • Shiny but that’s it

  • Mr. Dial

The Canon Dial that I really wanted does more than my previous purchase, but there is still something broken about it. I’ve been looking at the repair manuals for these cameras and they are packed full of parts which are easy to break and hard to mend. So for now the quest continues….

Red Rock Cider Police Squad Ads

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I was digging around for information about the Canon Dial 35 and I discovered that it was used to take an award winning photograph of Leslie Nielsen as part of an advertising campaign for Red Rock Cider. I haven’t been able to track down the picture, but I have managed to find a collection of the adverts. Well worth a watch. Back when advertising was clever and funny.

Minox Cartridges - take 2

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Last time I tried to print some cassettes for the Minox camera it didn’t end well. Never one to give up (see Canon Dial 35) I’ve today returned to the fray. I’m using my secret weapon; this time I’ve made my own design for the lids. The one I was using turned out to have a hole too small for the winder so I’ve made a new lid and spool which fits. I’m printing at a much slower speed too. And this time the cartridges seem to have worked - at least I can get them off the build plate without them disintegrating. Next thing is to pop some film in one and see how it works in a camera.

I seem to have bought 19 cameras...

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For reasons that I can’t fully explain I’ve become mildly obsessed with owning a Canon Dial 35 camera. This is a clockwork half-frame camera which dates from the 1960’s. Above you can see my first attempt at purchasing such a camera. It doesn’t look too bad does it? This is how it looked on the ebay listing that I eagerly perused.

..and this is the picture of the back. Needless to say, this picture was not on ebay. It turns out that it is best if your purchasers don’t know that the camera they are thinking of buying has been used to knock in tent pegs.

The camera doesn’t work. In fact it is actually one solid block of stuff. Nothing inside it moves. All the gears have rusted solid. It turns out that knocking in tent pegs might actually be a good use for it. So today, rather than question why I want one of these cameras, I’ve upped the anti a bit by ordering a lot of 19 broken cameras which include a Canon Dial 25 among their number. Most of them are plastic point and shoot devices of little interest but one or two of them might be gems. We shall see.

Yet More Hull Pixelbot Fun at our Hardware Meetup

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Sorry about the blur. It’s what I get when I try to be artistic

We had our hardware meetup tonight at Hull MakerSpace. Plenty of folks turning up and building/programming robots. We are still working on the rules for Robot Rugby, but in the meantime folks spent today attaching battery packs so their robots could wander around with no wires. I’ve started writing a book which describes the process we are going through. You can find the first part here. I’m going to be adding sections as we build each part of the robot.

This online Arduino Programming Tool is great

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Now you can program your Arduino Uno straight from the hullpixelbot.com site

This is an awesome and very useful tool:

https://github.com/dbuezas/arduino-web-uploader

it allows you to deploy Arduino Uno applications directly into a device from a web browser. Just what you want to do if you happen to have an Arduino Uno controlled robot that needs software. Like I do.

It means that you can now create and program your Hull Pixelbot without needing to download any code. You can load the HullOS operating system into your robot and then use the Hull Pixelbot Python-ish editor to deploy the code.

A chum for the Chaika

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Differently broken

What do you do when you’ve just bought a broken Russian camera? You buy another one of course. While I love the artistic potential of having one picture taken on top of another, it makes the camera much less useful for reportage (i.e. taking pictures of things that look like the things). So last week I waded back into the auction fray and managed to pick up another identical camera (for less than the original and with a case and wrist strap thrown in). From the images of the camera, this one has a complete takeup gear, so it bound to be OK. Right?

Wrong. The takeup gear is fine, the camera loads and takes pictures, the shutter works. But the film counter stays stuck at zero. Bearing in mind you can fit 72 pictures on a single roll of film, a way of knowing how many you’ve taken is kind of important. Wah. So I take the camera to pieces for a look-see.

I love the way that the clear plastic that covers the displays on the camera is actually made from old film.

Turns out there is a tiny cork clutch between the indicator dial and the gear that moves with the shutter advance. I stuck a couple of pieces of insulating tape on top of the cork to make it thicker and more grippy and we are in business. So now I have an “art Chaika” and a “business Chaika”.

Prey Another Day

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The artwork adds a lot to the game

Prey Another Day (which makes me think of James Bond film) lets up to five players try to eat each other over a series of hunts. For each hunt you pick an animal to send into the fray. You’re torn between power (the bear can hunt anything) and uniqueness (more than one of any animal in a hunt and all those animals are out of the round). So perhaps you might go for a “mid-table” lynx and hope that nobody else has made the same choice. Which is what four players did in our first game (it was hilarious).

As the game proceeds it gets more and more strategic and bluffy. Players start slapping down cards and making bear noises (at least some of us did). And maybe, just maybe you can take a lowly mouse to victory. Great fun and strongly reccommended.

Sore Thumb Video Games in York

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This is not a video game shop

Went to York today. Of course we took a picture of York Minster (see above). Of course we had a great meal at Zaap Thai. And of course we went to the Sore Thumb retro video game shop. This is an amazing place. Consoles and games jostle together on crammed shelves and they have at least one of everything. The even had a couple of GameBoy micros but not at prices I could ever afford. I made one small, silly purchase (of which more later) and they let me take some pictures of the place.

If you’re in York you really should go. If you’re near York you should go to York and then go there. A great place.