query: CAMERA CAMERA CAMERA

There has been scheming afoot. Mad, mad, undeniably wonderful scheming. Ray, mostly, though with some other people, like James and Nicole and Tony. Scheming, I might add, to replace the sadly lost camera. (If you wish to be part of this crusade, I can put you in contact with him.)

To this end, Ray has been doing some rather serious research, and has presented me with a rather serious question, which I have seriously researched, but have been too overwhelmed to immediately answer in reply. (How could I, considering? Wow. Just, wow.)

So I turn to you, dear internet, to help sway me off the fence of panicked indecision before the nondenominational shopping glory of boxing day passes. In your so humble opinion….

Verstehen Sie?

MAKE Magazine: How to make a 1934 USB web cam.

A while ago I converted a 1934 folding camera into a USB web cam. I brought it with me to Maker Faire Austin 2008 and a lot of people seemed to like it. In fact, a lot of people wanted to know how I made one. I promised them I would do a how-to on the blog, and I always keep my promises, so let’s get started.


Yes, those are webcams. Yes, I’m seriously considering doing this to my broken antique Speedex. I think it’s the niftiest DIY I’ve seen in months. The problem that I have with a lot of oh-so-stylish DIY is that the end result isn’t generally useful. It looks neat, but it’s a dead object, art for the sake of art, like the Steampunk Space Helmet. Because these both work and look damned good they are therefore, in my estimation, about a millionty-thousand times more awesome. Yes. Now to get a webcamera. And, like, a soldering iron. And heat-shrink tubing. And a… Rosin core solder?

artpost: one of them is made from Aluminium, Titanium, Acrylic, Formaldehyde & an infant human heart



Untouchable (HIV Camera)
by Wayne Martin Belger

4”x5” camera made from Aluminium, Copper, Titanium, Acrylic and HIV positive blood. The blood pumps through the camera then in front of the pinhole and becomes my #25 red filter. Designed to shoot a geographic comparison of people suffering from HIV.”

heartbreak

danger

Bad news:

My camera is dead.

My friend’s mother knocked it off a chair onto some stone tiles and, though made it through the night, it wouldn’t turn on the next morning. The force of the blow might have shaken the hardware from its casing, but I really don’t know. I feel helpless, like a parent whose child’s in a coma or a recent amputee. I keep reaching for it, panicked, certain it’s been left behind, stolen, gone, before remembering that it’s at home, auseless, expensive lump of ergonomic silver plastic. I’m broken hearted, suffering from phantom-camera syndrome, cursing each missed soliloquy opportunity to point my lens and scratch that irrepressible shutter-bug itch.

Help finance a trip to the repair shop?





edit: Whoo! My friend’s mum’s going to help out, so no worries, but thank you!

one of my favourite places to be “oh jesus christ” “oh god”

Today I started a letter-book with Troll. A place to house our invisible secrets. My new schedule means that I will never see him now, which leaves all delivery of the book to third parties. I dearly hope, for this especially, the network does not fail.

from we-make-money-not-art:

The Blind Camera, by Sascha Pohflepp, a contributor to We-Make-Money-Not-Art and new media artist based in Berlin, captures a moment at the press of a button. Note that, a moment, not a picture. The device has no optical parts. Instead, the camera records only the time you depress the shutter button and immediately searches the net for other photos that have been taken in the exact same moment.

“Essentially, it is a camera that only takes photos that were created by someone who pressed a button somewhere else at that very time as its own button was pressed.”

After a few minutes or hours, depending on how soon someone else shares their photo on the web, an image will appear on the screen. In a way, it belongs half to the person who had pressed the button and still remembers that moment. Because of that connection, the photos are never dismissed as random, no matter how enigmatic they may be.

Video.