The craftsman screwed the Canon EF 70-200 mm telephoto to the Game Boy camera

The Game Boy Handheld Game Console was very popular in the 90s. The Russian release took place in 1994, and at that time only the offspring of rich parents could afford such a luxury, while ordinary kids could only catch eggs on Electronics.

Game Boy became the world's first popular gaming system. This amazing device was equipped with a monochrome 160 × 144 pixel LCD screen, stereo sound and a GameLink function that allows you to connect two consoles together and play together if the game supports this mode.

In the late 90s, Game Boy’s popularity began to decline, and around that time, in 1998, Nintendo released an interesting accessory for it: Pocket Camera, a small camera module with a 128 × 128 pixel CMOS sensor.

The sensor recorded digital black and white images of 128 × 112 pixels using the four-color palette of the Game Boy system. It was even possible to connect the Game Boy Printer and print photos on thermal paper. In general, the real little Japanese miracle: digital photography and portable printing in the 90s.

Of course, Nintendo handheld cameras did not receive much popularity: soon digital “soap dishes” for $ 500-600 for 1-2 megapixels entered the market, and then inexpensive telephones with built-in cameras appeared, so that some cameras ceased to be in demand by the general public .

Specialized photographic equipment remained the lot of professionals. One of these is definitely a designer, photography enthusiast and handyman Bastiaan Ekeler. His new project combines seemingly incompatible things: the old Game Boy console, a camera module with a sensor that makes 128 × 112 pixels black and white images, and ... a professional Canon EF lens of 70-200 mm.



Bastian calculated that with a 1/4 "sensor format, the Game Boy Camera Crop Factor is about 10.81. If you connect a 70-200 f4 lens on the 1.4x extender, the maximum equivalent focal length will be 200 × 1.4 × 10, 81 = 3026.8 mm. A powerful telephoto lens is obtained. An interesting project, you can start.

No sooner said than done. The adapter for the lens was designed by a craftsman in the Rhinoceros 3D program and printed on a Monoprice Select Mini v2 3D printer with PLA plastic at a rather low resolution (for speed).



The Game Boy Camera PCB fit on the back of the printed piece after a small file fit, and together with the adapter, they fit into the partially disassembled Game Boy Camera case.



So far, the enthusiast does not consider the adapter made perfect enough to be published in the public domain on Thingiverse. He says that if others show enough enthusiasm and interest in this work, he will still refine the model and publish it.

Be that as it may, but even in the current state, the adapter performs its function - and holds together the entire structure with a camera sensor and a Canon EF 70-200 mm lens.

Bastian Ekeler has already walked by nature and made a series of photos at maximum zoom.


Seagull in the marine park them. Norman clip


Full moon in the Greenport area, pcs. New York, May 20, 2018


Lighthouse in Long Beach

As you can see, the lens really works properly in this case as a real telephoto. Curiously, such a combination of sensor size and maximum focal length with other parameters ideally places the full Moon at a maximum frame size of 128 × 112 pixels. Bastian says that it was not easy to take the Moon from hands on a 3000 mm lens in equivalent, sighting on a dark display controller of a game console without backlight, which is updated once a second. But still managed to make a couple of good shots.

Pictures are copied from the game console to the computer via the Game Boy printer emulator , made under the Arduino. It was necessary to buy a special cable for $ 5 and solder it directly to the Adafruit prototyping board on the old Arduino Duemilanove platform. The data from the console comes in the HEX format, but a small JavaScript script converts it into PNG (what we do in our time without JavaScript, the author asks).



Several other shots taken on the TV:



As you can see, it’s not at all necessary to buy new-fashioned equipment for a great photo shoot. It uses an expensive lens, but if you replace it with something cheaper, you will hardly notice a particular difference in quality.