Just came across the Haruhisa Camera, a digital camera contraption of ridiculous proportions that makes painterly pictures SOC. Posting here in case of interest. The Japanese inventor has made about 30 of these, apparently, and mostly rents them out. Not much in English on the web. There’s an insta hashtag #haruhisacamera.
This page has some details and further links:
They’re all individually made but here’s one example:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DHIfTTPSM2H/?igsh=MXM0NzEyd2VjMjA0dQ==
What do the photos look like?
I struggled to post a link to them as they’re mostly on an instagram hashtag. Basically soft and scratchy, like painted on a canvas, and vignetted. I guess you’re taking a photo of a projection of an image on an old glass screen. That’s why there’s two lenses. Otherwise you could just add a scratchy glass filter on your regular camera. I guess you could do all this digitally with some effort. It might just be bonkers. It also seems to have narrow and weird depth of field, a bit like a tilt lens.
That’s wild. I wonder what sort of exposure times you’d get with that. And also how stable the whole setup is…
The images look really nice though. I enjoy how unnecessary and arbitrary it all is, but it adds some mystique to it. Like, you could accomplish a similar look other ways, but if you aren’t lugging around one of those contraptions, it’s not as legit.
When will some enterprising lens manufacturer come up with their own design with interchangeable slides?
I suppose it’s more a “lens” than the “camera” that Harisa describes it as.
Craziest person, rather than craziest camera.
When we were in New Zealand, we came across a photographer called Andris Apse. I was particularly drawn to his mountain shots. He now uses a DSLR, but his early photography was done with a home-made 5"x4" camera, which he toted up the mountains along with a wooden tripod to support it. I hate to think of the combined weight of camera, tripod and filmstock.
The results are however, stunning - Alpine Gallery
Here’s a shot of the plate of a TLR with a macro lens, I think it would be quite easy to swap the glass with another one. ISO 4000 but there wasn’t that much light. It’s a bit awkward to shoot down into it, and you would need two tripods to do long exposures. But it does have a look, even with the guide lines and the fresnel.
I really like those pictures.
I’ve seen a similar camera design several years ago built by someone in a steampunk forum. Basically a pin hole camera with a glass screen and a DSLR inside that takes a photo of the screen.
Unfortunately, that forum doesn’t exist anymore. I could only find it on the makers website but only one example shot is shown there.
Those also look weirdly organic or “filmic” but I guess that’s just our default description now for anything that doesn’t look digital sharp.
