This 3D printed camera has taken more than 2 years of work1. This is not a nostalgic project and aims to demonstrate how little separation there really can be between film and digital, no matter how much most of the industry is bent on technological showboating. It is intended to last and to be able to establish a long-term relationship with the tool. Although I have no doubt that this project will still make sense in the future, the real trigger has been the awful present that cinema and technology have because of an unreasonable consumption model. In any case, it could be considered a recycling project or a kind of Frankenstein.

It aims to fill a void that I feel has existed for some years now. It has been conceived for something obvious, but unfortunately infrequent lately: that a person can make films that can be projected on the screen of a movie theater.

There is a bit of ideas of Beauviala, Godard, Epstein, Vertov, Farocki and some activist television movements.

The design is fine-tuned to the millimeter down to the smallest detail. The concept is reduced to the essential, completely avoiding the use of bulky accessories. It has easy access to the memory card and the mount release button. The grip provides ergonomics, stability and convenient access to the controls. The tilted screen allows for comfortable positions and convenient camera shots both hand-held and tripod-mounted. It also has an LCD viewfinder mount. Assembly is super easy, and there is no risk of damaging anything.

The design is also customizable and allows you to personalize the grip and the side panel with: wood, leather, metal, carbon fiber, textured plastic, etc.

Works with Magic Lantern open-source firmware, and is based on the EOS-M, Canon’s first mirrorless camera still made in Japan2. It is the camera that met (and meets even better today) all the requirements that I considered indispensable: free software, exceptional image quality, good construction, large community behind, cheap, both in the storage system and also the image processing, compatible with many lenses, including Super8, television, 16mm and Super16, and that allows experimenting with the digital image, understanding it and manipulating it.

With the right workflow, you can perfectly well get a 2K DCP with stunning quality. But the variable resolution sensor and its mount allow infinite options: almost any aspect ratio, and any framerate, like 16, 18, 20, or 22.

The power button is also a recording indicator. By flashing orange thanks to a small reflector and a translucent button, the original LED has been retained and it tells you at a quick overview how much work the camera is performing, so you can get an idea of the fps and know that everything is going well without having to keep checking the screen all the time.

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Cooling is also greatly improved. It has heatsinks and a small Noctua fan that expels heat to the outside, in a compartmentalized area and completely separated from the wiring area. The ventilation of the memory card is also improved by a grille and more space by using a dummy battery designed specifically for this purpose.

One of the fundamental pillars of this project was its battery system. It uses universal 18650 Li-ion batteries, quadrupling the original capacity at a very low cost and will never have availability or quality problems. In addition, with good practices, the same batteries can last for decades in perfect condition.

It has a protection system that has been specifically designed for the camera, which avoids incorrect battery placement, but allows charging in any universal charger. You no longer depend on batteries of dubious quality, or expensive batteries, or proprietary chargers.

More information on the upcoming release, samples, licensing and assembly instructions, as well as design curiosities and new projects coming soon. Stay tuned on Instagram!

  1. Along with many more years of invaluable work by other people all over the world. Note all the developers of Magic Lantern and MLVApp, ffmpeg, DCP-o-matic, demosaicings like RCD and AMaZE, Avisynth and free software in general.↩︎

  2. It is a very interesting camera. With horrible and anachronistic marketing, early press releases advertised it as a small camera for women, available in several colors. It seems there was a lot riding on this first mirrorless with its new EF-M mount (now abandoned) and thanks to this, the camera has outstanding build quality. In fact, the entire chassis of this camera is so robust, with so much metal, that no other later model in the series retained this feature, probably because it would be too expensive to manufacture.↩︎