WHAT?
The sucess of Leica, Fujifilm and Nikon signals the rise of aspirational photography gears, valuing the experience of taking a picture instead of raw technical specifications. The Yashica Digital aims to bring that experience to any camera with interchangeable lens.
HOW?
The lens and shutter mechanism was taken from a TLR camera which is then housed in a 3d printed housing that contains a mirror and a ground glass to enable the analog optical viewfinder. Additionally, the taking lens of the TLR is lined up with the digital sensor of the camera via a 3d printed mount reversed engineered from the manufacturer’s engineering drawings. The optical stack was designed with tolerance for 3d printing while maintaining optical spacing.
The housing was designed top-down in Creo Parametrics driven by the lenses’ focal length, and the digital camera’s flange distance. This enabled the design to be quickly updated to fit different cameras and donor lenses which enabled a highly iterative and agile design process.
The design features a rack and pinion focusing mechanism that was toleranced for 3d printing while still maintaining a smooth action.