The next new film camera could come from Lego
Published Aug 16, 2024 | Mitchell Clark
It’s an exciting time to be a film photographer. After almost two decades without a major new film camera release, Pentax released the 17 earlier this year. Now, there’s a chance we may be getting yet another film camera from another famed manufacturer… Lego.
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The toy company has a program called Lego Ideas, which lets community members submit their own designs. If enough people vote for an Idea, Lego will review it, and there’s a chance it’ll get turned into an actual product you can buy. (Some examples of current products that were once ideas: a motorized lighthouse, a typewriter, and a Polaroid OneStep.)
This is why there’s a chance we’ll get a film camera from the company. User Zung92 has submitted a plan for a real, working film camera that’s made up of 595 plastic bricks. They call it the ZH1, and say that it has an actual viewfinder, releasable winding lever, and can even take half- or full-frame images.
If you want to see what photos taken with a camera made with off-the-shelf Lego pieces look like, Zung has posted a gallery on their Instagram. The quality is about what you’d expect from a camera where the exposure length is dictated by how long you hold down the shutter button, but the fact that it produces useable images at all is really impressive. In their Ideas submission, Zung92 says it took a lot of work to get the camera light-sealed while still keeping it portable.
The project is actually a few years old at this point, but press from outlets like PetaPixel and Kosmo Foto have recently thrust it into the spotlight. That’s likely because it has less than a month left to get the 10,000 votes it needs to be reviewed by Lego’s experts. At time of writing it hasn’t quite made it, but it seems extremely likely that it will given how quickly the counter is going up.
If it does reach that threshold and makes it to production (which, again, isn’t assured even if it gets the votes), it’ll be far from the first camera set from the company. It currently sells the aforementioned Polaroid SX-70 reproduction and a ‘Retro Camera’ kit that even includes film roll-shaped bricks. There have also been various Leica-inspired reproductions over the years. However, none of those have ever let you insert a real roll of film, turn the advance lever, and take a picture.
| In an update video, Zung92 shows the process of loading film into the ZH1. Also, check out that viewfinder mounted on the cold shoe. |
One final note about using a Lego camera. As I was writing this, I considered whether I should make a joke about how someone using the ZH1 might lose a roll of photos because they dropped the camera, and it shattered into 595 pieces (as Lego creations are wont to do). But it turns out that’s already happened. Last year, Zung posted on Instagram: “My Lego Camera took a tumble, shattered into pieces, and even went on an adventure down a street vent!”
That’s so much worse than accidentally opening the film door while rewinding the roll.
Tags: film, film-friday, lego
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