The concept of the open source camera.

[koraks]

There is little need for advanced microprocessor in a practical film camera.

The fact is that some things are just easier to solve in software/firmware than in hardware. E.g. a shutter with a number of speeds and decent accuracy is way easier to implement using an electronics + software approach than using mechanical escapements etc. It'll also be more reliable, easier to calibrate (or even no calibration necessary) and simpler to construct with less moving parts.

 

[Chan Tran]

The fact is that some things are just easier to solve in software/firmware than in hardware. E.g. a shutter with a number of speeds and decent accuracy is way easier to implement using an electronics + software approach than using mechanical escapements etc. It'll also be more reliable, easier to calibrate (or even no calibration necessary) and simpler to construct with less moving parts.

You don't need advanced microprocessor to have shutter accuracy and while electronically controlled shutters are accurate at slow speed, at high speed like 1/1000 and higher they don't fare better than purely mechanical shutter. At those speed the shutter travel time, acceleration, deceleration etc.. have a lot more influent on the shutter accuracy.

 

[lumoStoria]

You don't need advanced microprocessor to have shutter accuracy and while electronically controlled shutters are accurate at slow speed, at high speed like 1/1000 and higher they don't fare better than purely mechanical shutter. At those speed the shutter travel time, acceleration, deceleration etc.. have a lot more influent on the shutter accuracy.

I don't think that is true. Assuming a smooth and consistent movement of the shutter curtains (that is a pure mechanical problem), you can fine-tune the higher speeds like the 1/1000sec much better on a electro-mechanical camera than on a pure mechanical one. Usually, you do this by adjusting the release time of the second curtain. Yes. there is an acceleration and deceleraration when using shutter curtains but if the mechanics of the shutter is in good order they do not influence the shutter accuracy significantly as long as they are consistent. If they deviate a lot between shots neither a mechanical nor an electro-mechancial shutter would be accurate.

 

[koraks]

You don't need advanced microprocessor to have shutter accuracy and while electronically controlled shutters are accurate at slow speed, at high speed like 1/1000 and higher they don't fare better than purely mechanical shutter. At those speed the shutter travel time, acceleration, deceleration etc.. have a lot more influent on the shutter accuracy.

Need - no. But it's the easiest way.

 

[reddesert]

IMO, one can talk around more or less forever about things that should be open source, without getting any closer to something actually being developed. (And I'm no enemy of open source, I have used much publicly released software for scientific research and written/released some).

What has proved productive in the past in photography, and is likely to be helpful in the future, are standardized interfaces that are relatively simple. Many of the ones I can think of are mechanical:

- M42 lens mount
- standard threads for mounting lenses in shutters and shutters to boards (Copal/Compur #0 and #1)
- standard LF and MF film holder sizes, like a sheet film holder, the Graflok back, the 2x3 / RB67 roll film holder
- LF lensboards
- stuff everybody takes for granted like tripod mounts and filter threads
- the ISO hot shoe and PC connector
Plus, obviously, standardized film sizes.

There are some interfaces that also have an electronic component, like the flash trigger signal, or electronics that are reverse-engineered such as 3rd-party AF lenses and TTL flash controls. Plus of course standard batteries. Some of the heartburn with maintaing out of production camera equipment has to do with non-standard items like battery packs for certain MF cameras.

Standardization is great for longevity because for example if you use a LF camera, and one of your shutters or film holders dies, you can swap in another one. However, the more integrated and miniaturized the camera, the fewer opportunities for this.

One could imagine, for example, standardizing an electronic shutter control such that Person/Company A designs a shutter - let's say a leaf shutter controlled by a fast stepper motor or solenoid, that could substitute for a Copal leaf shutter - and standardizes the control so that Person/Companies B and C could both build cameras and lenses that use it. Even in 35mm size (same way many 35mm cameras were once built around Copal or Compur shutters). That's great, but I think it's pretty clear that the heavy lift is actually finding the demand to make any new shutter and the engineering to bring it to mechanical reality. The control protocol is not really the hard part.