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A Full Spectrum Conversion That Went Wrong, Or: How I Killed A Kodak Charmera
Unusually, I’m going to start this post off with a disclaimer and a warning. If you try to follow these guidelines to make a Charmera full-spectrum and kill the camera, like I did, it’s not my fault. This was my experience and it kind of worked, and then it didn’t. Also, and I’ll get this out at the start: always make sure that the microSD card is removed from the camera. In this post I suggest using sharp blades in several (well two) places, so please, please take care when attempting this. I don’t want to read in any comments about cuts, and missing fingertips, or worse. Take care of yourselves, and if you find a better way of disassembling the Charmera that doesn’t involve blades, please let me know.
A couple of weeks ago, in December of 2025, I picked up a Kodak Charmera, a small ‘keychain’ camera. In fact, I have three Charmeras now; my original ‘rainbows and stars’ design, which is a normal unmodified version, and two others, which have remained in their boxes. This post is about the second Charmera, which I was hoping would be used for a full-spectrum conversion.
As a reminder, the Charmera is a small, no tiny, digital camera with a 1.6MP sensor and a tiny LCD screen. The controls are minimal, an on/off button, which also doubles as a menu selector, the shutter button, and three buttons on the back. One for playback/select items and two toggle buttons that cycle through the different filters. The shutter speed is fixed at around 1/30s, and images are stored on a microSD card. On the bottom of the device, next to the microSD card slot, is a USB-C socket for charging the camera or transferring files. There are six different designs of the Charmera, with a seventh transparent design as a ‘special’, and they’re sold in ‘blind’ boxes, so you don’t actually know which one you’ve got until you open the box.
One thing I wondered with the original Charmera, as I do with all my cameras, was about it’s infrared sensitivity. With a 720nm infrared filter held over the lens I got a lovely result, and with red, green, and blue filters, made some nice digital aerochromes and trichromes. So I was certainly encouraged going into this experiment. In this case, I’m hoping to open up the Charmera and remove the IR cut filter in front of the sensor to make it truly full-spectrum. In this condition, the sensor will be sensitive to all wavelengths of light, from ultraviolet to infrared, and with 720nm and (a newly acquired) 590nm filters, I hope I might get some interesting results.
Opening the blind box revealed that I had the ‘Kodak red’ version of the Charmera, which seemed appropriate considering what I wanted to do with it. Looking at the sealed camera, I wondered how I might get into it, but from a previous test with my original Charmera I knew that with a fine blade I could prise the back off the camera. You have to be really careful, and not press too hard with the blade. Once the back starts to come off, you can separate the back from the camera, it’s just held together with clips. One thing: if you’ve previously used the Charmera, make sure that you take out the microSD card. This will stop the main board from being removed from the body, and I think this is where I went wrong later.
Don’t pull the back away from the camera, the LCD screen is connected to the main board with a thin ribbon wire, and you don’t want the break that. I’ve seen videos where the user has opened the tab connecting the ribbon wire to the main board and separated the LCD screen completely, but you don’t have to do that, so long as you are careful. Lift the battery off the main board, this is held on with double sided tape, and gently pull out the speaker. Be very careful with this, the wires are very thin. I found it best to tug gently on the wires until the speaker is partially removed and then pull it completely out with tweezers.
The next stage is to remove the main board. The is fixed to the body with two tiny screws. (Remember to check that you’ve removed the microSD card.) When these are removed keep them safe, don’t lose them. The whole circuit board should fall out leaving two parts, the LCD back, with circuit board, speaker, and battery attached, and the now empty front of the camera. The sensor and lens assembly is connected to the front of the board with another ribbon wire, and this just pops into a mount in the front of the camera.
To get to the IR cut filter you need to pry the lens from the sensor. I was lucky to have a fine-blade medical scalpel, but a small X-acto (box cutter) should do to trick. Again, this seems to be lightly glued together, but once the two parts are partially separated, it’s easy to pull apart. This should reveal the small sensor on one side, and the lens and cut filter on the other. You can’t miss the IR cut filter, it’s the circular glass, and reflects light with a lovely pink hue. I tried to get this out in one piece with my blade, but it’s so thin that it just broke, so I just dug it out as best as I could. Underneath you can see the lens, and all you need to do is squeeze the two parts back together. I think that the foam padding on the back of the sensor holds the lens assembly securely in place when the main board is reattached, so you shouldn’t have to glue it together. As you’ll see shortly, it might be better not to glue the lens to the sensor in case adjustments have to be made.
Reassembling the Charmera is then just a matter of positioning the lens assembly in its socket, reattaching the main board with the two screws, and putting the speaker and battery back in place. Once all this is done, the camera back can be clipped back into place. Now it’s time to power up and test your nice new full-spectrum Charmera.
And this is where everything came slightly unstuck for me. Up close, the view through the LCD screen looked great, with all of the images having a lovely pink tinge. I took the camera to the window, and although the sun had set, the image looked like a full-spectrum image. I took an image of the view, and transferred it to the phone. It was blurred. It’s a known fact that infrared wavelengths have a slightly different point of focus to visible wavelengths, and the IR cut filter has a small refractive index that the manufacturers adjust for when making digital cameras. I was hoping that the cut filter of the Charmera was thin enough that this would not have been important, but it seems like it is.
I reopened the Charmera and started to take it apart, which was going perfectly well until I tried to remove the main board from the body. It just wouldn’t come out. And then I remembered the microSD card, which was still sitting in the camera. When I removed that the board came out easily, but when I tried to power the disassembled camera to check focus, it was dead. The only thing I can think of was that I tried to pull the board out with the microSD card in place, and somewhere along the line I broke something. So now I have a dead red Charmera. It’s a shame, I really liked that design.
If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow my WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline on Mastodon.
#Abstract #Aerochrome #Charmera #Digital #Experimental #Filters #Infrared #Kodak #KodakCharmera #LoFi #Retro #ToyCamera #Trichrome #VintageVibes
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A Full Spectrum Conversion That Went Wrong, Or: How I Killed A Kodak Charmera
Unusually, I’m going to start this post off with a disclaimer and a warning. If you try to follow these guidelines to make a Charmera full-spectrum and kill the camera, like I did, it’s not my fault. This was my experience and it kind of worked, and then it didn’t. Also, and I’ll get this out at the start: always make sure that the microSD card is removed from the camera. In this post I suggest using sharp blades in several (well two) places, so please, please take care when attempting this. I don’t want to read in any comments about cuts, and missing fingertips, or worse. Take care of yourselves, and if you find a better way of disassembling the Charmera that doesn’t involve blades, please let me know.
A couple of weeks ago, in December of 2025, I picked up a Kodak Charmera, a small ‘keychain’ camera. In fact, I have three Charmeras now; my original ‘rainbows and stars’ design, which is a normal unmodified version, and two others, which have remained in their boxes. This post is about the second Charmera, which I was hoping would be used for a full-spectrum conversion.
As a reminder, the Charmera is a small, no tiny, digital camera with a 1.6MP sensor and a tiny LCD screen. The controls are minimal, an on/off button, which also doubles as a menu selector, the shutter button, and three buttons on the back. One for playback/select items and two toggle buttons that cycle through the different filters. The shutter speed is fixed at around 1/30s, and images are stored on a microSD card. On the bottom of the device, next to the microSD card slot, is a USB-C socket for charging the camera or transferring files. There are six different designs of the Charmera, with a seventh transparent design as a ‘special’, and they’re sold in ‘blind’ boxes, so you don’t actually know which one you’ve got until you open the box.
One thing I wondered with the original Charmera, as I do with all my cameras, was about it’s infrared sensitivity. With a 720nm infrared filter held over the lens I got a lovely result, and with red, green, and blue filters, made some nice digital aerochromes and trichromes. So I was certainly encouraged going into this experiment. In this case, I’m hoping to open up the Charmera and remove the IR cut filter in front of the sensor to make it truly full-spectrum. In this condition, the sensor will be sensitive to all wavelengths of light, from ultraviolet to infrared, and with 720nm and (a newly acquired) 590nm filters, I hope I might get some interesting results.
Opening the blind box revealed that I had the ‘Kodak red’ version of the Charmera, which seemed appropriate considering what I wanted to do with it. Looking at the sealed camera, I wondered how I might get into it, but from a previous test with my original Charmera I knew that with a fine blade I could prise the back off the camera. You have to be really careful, and not press too hard with the blade. Once the back starts to come off, you can separate the back from the camera, it’s just held together with clips. One thing: if you’ve previously used the Charmera, make sure that you take out the microSD card. This will stop the main board from being removed from the body, and I think this is where I went wrong later.
Don’t pull the back away from the camera, the LCD screen is connected to the main board with a thin ribbon wire, and you don’t want the break that. I’ve seen videos where the user has opened the tab connecting the ribbon wire to the main board and separated the LCD screen completely, but you don’t have to do that, so long as you are careful. Lift the battery off the main board, this is held on with double sided tape, and gently pull out the speaker. Be very careful with this, the wires are very thin. I found it best to tug gently on the wires until the speaker is partially removed and then pull it completely out with tweezers.
The next stage is to remove the main board. The is fixed to the body with two tiny screws. (Remember to check that you’ve removed the microSD card.) When these are removed keep them safe, don’t lose them. The whole circuit board should fall out leaving two parts, the LCD back, with circuit board, speaker, and battery attached, and the now empty front of the camera. The sensor and lens assembly is connected to the front of the board with another ribbon wire, and this just pops into a mount in the front of the camera.
To get to the IR cut filter you need to pry the lens from the sensor. I was lucky to have a fine-blade medical scalpel, but a small X-acto (box cutter) should do to trick. Again, this seems to be lightly glued together, but once the two parts are partially separated, it’s easy to pull apart. This should reveal the small sensor on one side, and the lens and cut filter on the other. You can’t miss the IR cut filter, it’s the circular glass, and reflects light with a lovely pink hue. I tried to get this out in one piece with my blade, but it’s so thin that it just broke, so I just dug it out as best as I could. Underneath you can see the lens, and all you need to do is squeeze the two parts back together. I think that the foam padding on the back of the sensor holds the lens assembly securely in place when the main board is reattached, so you shouldn’t have to glue it together. As you’ll see shortly, it might be better not to glue the lens to the sensor in case adjustments have to be made.
Reassembling the Charmera is then just a matter of positioning the lens assembly in its socket, reattaching the main board with the two screws, and putting the speaker and battery back in place. Once all this is done, the camera back can be clipped back into place. Now it’s time to power up and test your nice new full-spectrum Charmera.
And this is where everything came slightly unstuck for me. Up close, the view through the LCD screen looked great, with all of the images having a lovely pink tinge. I took the camera to the window, and although the sun had set, the image looked like a full-spectrum image. I took an image of the view, and transferred it to the phone. It was blurred. It’s a known fact that infrared wavelengths have a slightly different point of focus to visible wavelengths, and the IR cut filter has a small refractive index that the manufacturers adjust for when making digital cameras. I was hoping that the cut filter of the Charmera was thin enough that this would not have been important, but it seems like it is.
I reopened the Charmera and started to take it apart, which was going perfectly well until I tried to remove the main board from the body. It just wouldn’t come out. And then I remembered the microSD card, which was still sitting in the camera. When I removed that the board came out easily, but when I tried to power the disassembled camera to check focus, it was dead. The only thing I can think of was that I tried to pull the board out with the microSD card in place, and somewhere along the line I broke something. So now I have a dead red Charmera. It’s a shame, I really liked that design.
If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow my WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline on Mastodon.
#Abstract #Aerochrome #Charmera #Digital #Experimental #Filters #Infrared #Kodak #KodakCharmera #LoFi #Retro #ToyCamera #Trichrome #VintageVibes
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A Full Spectrum Conversion That Went Wrong, Or: How I Killed A Kodak Charmera
Unusually, I’m going to start this post off with a disclaimer and a warning. If you try to follow these guidelines to make a Charmera full-spectrum and kill the camera, like I did, it’s not my fault. This was my experience and it kind of worked, and then it didn’t. Also, and I’ll get this out at the start: always make sure that the microSD card is removed from the camera. In this post I suggest using sharp blades in several (well two) places, so please, please take care when attempting this. I don’t want to read in any comments about cuts, and missing fingertips, or worse. Take care of yourselves, and if you find a better way of disassembling the Charmera that doesn’t involve blades, please let me know.
A couple of weeks ago, in December of 2025, I picked up a Kodak Charmera, a small ‘keychain’ camera. In fact, I have three Charmeras now; my original ‘rainbows and stars’ design, which is a normal unmodified version, and two others, which have remained in their boxes. This post is about the second Charmera, which I was hoping would be used for a full-spectrum conversion.
As a reminder, the Charmera is a small, no tiny, digital camera with a 1.6MP sensor and a tiny LCD screen. The controls are minimal, an on/off button, which also doubles as a menu selector, the shutter button, and three buttons on the back. One for playback/select items and two toggle buttons that cycle through the different filters. The shutter speed is fixed at around 1/30s, and images are stored on a microSD card. On the bottom of the device, next to the microSD card slot, is a USB-C socket for charging the camera or transferring files. There are six different designs of the Charmera, with a seventh transparent design as a ‘special’, and they’re sold in ‘blind’ boxes, so you don’t actually know which one you’ve got until you open the box.
One thing I wondered with the original Charmera, as I do with all my cameras, was about it’s infrared sensitivity. With a 720nm infrared filter held over the lens I got a lovely result, and with red, green, and blue filters, made some nice digital aerochromes and trichromes. So I was certainly encouraged going into this experiment. In this case, I’m hoping to open up the Charmera and remove the IR cut filter in front of the sensor to make it truly full-spectrum. In this condition, the sensor will be sensitive to all wavelengths of light, from ultraviolet to infrared, and with 720nm and (a newly acquired) 590nm filters, I hope I might get some interesting results.
Opening the blind box revealed that I had the ‘Kodak red’ version of the Charmera, which seemed appropriate considering what I wanted to do with it. Looking at the sealed camera, I wondered how I might get into it, but from a previous test with my original Charmera I knew that with a fine blade I could prise the back off the camera. You have to be really careful, and not press too hard with the blade. Once the back starts to come off, you can separate the back from the camera, it’s just held together with clips. One thing: if you’ve previously used the Charmera, make sure that you take out the microSD card. This will stop the main board from being removed from the body, and I think this is where I went wrong later.
Don’t pull the back away from the camera, the LCD screen is connected to the main board with a thin ribbon wire, and you don’t want the break that. I’ve seen videos where the user has opened the tab connecting the ribbon wire to the main board and separated the LCD screen completely, but you don’t have to do that, so long as you are careful. Lift the battery off the main board, this is held on with double sided tape, and gently pull out the speaker. Be very careful with this, the wires are very thin. I found it best to tug gently on the wires until the speaker is partially removed and then pull it completely out with tweezers.
The next stage is to remove the main board. The is fixed to the body with two tiny screws. (Remember to check that you’ve removed the microSD card.) When these are removed keep them safe, don’t lose them. The whole circuit board should fall out leaving two parts, the LCD back, with circuit board, speaker, and battery attached, and the now empty front of the camera. The sensor and lens assembly is connected to the front of the board with another ribbon wire, and this just pops into a mount in the front of the camera.
To get to the IR cut filter you need to pry the lens from the sensor. I was lucky to have a fine-blade medical scalpel, but a small X-acto (box cutter) should do to trick. Again, this seems to be lightly glued together, but once the two parts are partially separated, it’s easy to pull apart. This should reveal the small sensor on one side, and the lens and cut filter on the other. You can’t miss the IR cut filter, it’s the circular glass, and reflects light with a lovely pink hue. I tried to get this out in one piece with my blade, but it’s so thin that it just broke, so I just dug it out as best as I could. Underneath you can see the lens, and all you need to do is squeeze the two parts back together. I think that the foam padding on the back of the sensor holds the lens assembly securely in place when the main board is reattached, so you shouldn’t have to glue it together. As you’ll see shortly, it might be better not to glue the lens to the sensor in case adjustments have to be made.
Reassembling the Charmera is then just a matter of positioning the lens assembly in its socket, reattaching the main board with the two screws, and putting the speaker and battery back in place. Once all this is done, the camera back can be clipped back into place. Now it’s time to power up and test your nice new full-spectrum Charmera.
And this is where everything came slightly unstuck for me. Up close, the view through the LCD screen looked great, with all of the images having a lovely pink tinge. I took the camera to the window, and although the sun had set, the image looked like a full-spectrum image. I took an image of the view, and transferred it to the phone. It was blurred. It’s a known fact that infrared wavelengths have a slightly different point of focus to visible wavelengths, and the IR cut filter has a small refractive index that the manufacturers adjust for when making digital cameras. I was hoping that the cut filter of the Charmera was thin enough that this would not have been important, but it seems like it is.
I reopened the Charmera and started to take it apart, which was going perfectly well until I tried to remove the main board from the body. It just wouldn’t come out. And then I remembered the microSD card, which was still sitting in the camera. When I removed that the board came out easily, but when I tried to power the disassembled camera to check focus, it was dead. The only thing I can think of was that I tried to pull the board out with the microSD card in place, and somewhere along the line I broke something. So now I have a dead red Charmera. It’s a shame, I really liked that design.
If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow my WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline on Mastodon.
#Abstract #Aerochrome #Charmera #Digital #Experimental #Filters #Infrared #Kodak #KodakCharmera #LoFi #Retro #ToyCamera #Trichrome #VintageVibes
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A Full Spectrum Conversion That Went Wrong, Or: How I Killed A Kodak Charmera
Unusually, I’m going to start this post off with a disclaimer and a warning. If you try to follow these guidelines to make a Charmera full-spectrum and kill the camera, like I did, it’s not my fault. This was my experience and it kind of worked, and then it didn’t. Also, and I’ll get this out at the start: always make sure that the microSD card is removed from the camera. In this post I suggest using sharp blades in several (well two) places, so please, please take care when attempting this. I don’t want to read in any comments about cuts, and missing fingertips, or worse. Take care of yourselves, and if you find a better way of disassembling the Charmera that doesn’t involve blades, please let me know.
A couple of weeks ago, in December of 2025, I picked up a Kodak Charmera, a small ‘keychain’ camera. In fact, I have three Charmeras now; my original ‘rainbows and stars’ design, which is a normal unmodified version, and two others, which have remained in their boxes. This post is about the second Charmera, which I was hoping would be used for a full-spectrum conversion.
As a reminder, the Charmera is a small, no tiny, digital camera with a 1.6MP sensor and a tiny LCD screen. The controls are minimal, an on/off button, which also doubles as a menu selector, the shutter button, and three buttons on the back. One for playback/select items and two toggle buttons that cycle through the different filters. The shutter speed is fixed at around 1/30s, and images are stored on a microSD card. On the bottom of the device, next to the microSD card slot, is a USB-C socket for charging the camera or transferring files. There are six different designs of the Charmera, with a seventh transparent design as a ‘special’, and they’re sold in ‘blind’ boxes, so you don’t actually know which one you’ve got until you open the box.
One thing I wondered with the original Charmera, as I do with all my cameras, was about it’s infrared sensitivity. With a 720nm infrared filter held over the lens I got a lovely result, and with red, green, and blue filters, made some nice digital aerochromes and trichromes. So I was certainly encouraged going into this experiment. In this case, I’m hoping to open up the Charmera and remove the IR cut filter in front of the sensor to make it truly full-spectrum. In this condition, the sensor will be sensitive to all wavelengths of light, from ultraviolet to infrared, and with 720nm and (a newly acquired) 590nm filters, I hope I might get some interesting results.
Opening the blind box revealed that I had the ‘Kodak red’ version of the Charmera, which seemed appropriate considering what I wanted to do with it. Looking at the sealed camera, I wondered how I might get into it, but from a previous test with my original Charmera I knew that with a fine blade I could prise the back off the camera. You have to be really careful, and not press too hard with the blade. Once the back starts to come off, you can separate the back from the camera, it’s just held together with clips. One thing: if you’ve previously used the Charmera, make sure that you take out the microSD card. This will stop the main board from being removed from the body, and I think this is where I went wrong later.
Don’t pull the back away from the camera, the LCD screen is connected to the main board with a thin ribbon wire, and you don’t want the break that. I’ve seen videos where the user has opened the tab connecting the ribbon wire to the main board and separated the LCD screen completely, but you don’t have to do that, so long as you are careful. Lift the battery off the main board, this is held on with double sided tape, and gently pull out the speaker. Be very careful with this, the wires are very thin. I found it best to tug gently on the wires until the speaker is partially removed and then pull it completely out with tweezers.
The next stage is to remove the main board. The is fixed to the body with two tiny screws. (Remember to check that you’ve removed the microSD card.) When these are removed keep them safe, don’t lose them. The whole circuit board should fall out leaving two parts, the LCD back, with circuit board, speaker, and battery attached, and the now empty front of the camera. The sensor and lens assembly is connected to the front of the board with another ribbon wire, and this just pops into a mount in the front of the camera.
To get to the IR cut filter you need to pry the lens from the sensor. I was lucky to have a fine-blade medical scalpel, but a small X-acto (box cutter) should do to trick. Again, this seems to be lightly glued together, but once the two parts are partially separated, it’s easy to pull apart. This should reveal the small sensor on one side, and the lens and cut filter on the other. You can’t miss the IR cut filter, it’s the circular glass, and reflects light with a lovely pink hue. I tried to get this out in one piece with my blade, but it’s so thin that it just broke, so I just dug it out as best as I could. Underneath you can see the lens, and all you need to do is squeeze the two parts back together. I think that the foam padding on the back of the sensor holds the lens assembly securely in place when the main board is reattached, so you shouldn’t have to glue it together. As you’ll see shortly, it might be better not to glue the lens to the sensor in case adjustments have to be made.
Reassembling the Charmera is then just a matter of positioning the lens assembly in its socket, reattaching the main board with the two screws, and putting the speaker and battery back in place. Once all this is done, the camera back can be clipped back into place. Now it’s time to power up and test your nice new full-spectrum Charmera.
And this is where everything came slightly unstuck for me. Up close, the view through the LCD screen looked great, with all of the images having a lovely pink tinge. I took the camera to the window, and although the sun had set, the image looked like a full-spectrum image. I took an image of the view, and transferred it to the phone. It was blurred. It’s a known fact that infrared wavelengths have a slightly different point of focus to visible wavelengths, and the IR cut filter has a small refractive index that the manufacturers adjust for when making digital cameras. I was hoping that the cut filter of the Charmera was thin enough that this would not have been important, but it seems like it is.
I reopened the Charmera and started to take it apart, which was going perfectly well until I tried to remove the main board from the body. It just wouldn’t come out. And then I remembered the microSD card, which was still sitting in the camera. When I removed that the board came out easily, but when I tried to power the disassembled camera to check focus, it was dead. The only thing I can think of was that I tried to pull the board out with the microSD card in place, and somewhere along the line I broke something. So now I have a dead red Charmera. It’s a shame, I really liked that design.
If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow my WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline on Mastodon.
#Abstract #Aerochrome #Charmera #Digital #Experimental #Filters #Infrared #Kodak #KodakCharmera #LoFi #Retro #ToyCamera #Trichrome #VintageVibes
-
A Full Spectrum Conversion That Went Wrong, Or: How I Killed A Kodak Charmera
Unusually, I’m going to start this post off with a disclaimer and a warning. If you try to follow these guidelines to make a Charmera full-spectrum and kill the camera, like I did, it’s not my fault. This was my experience and it kind of worked, and then it didn’t. Also, and I’ll get this out at the start: always make sure that the microSD card is removed from the camera. In this post I suggest using sharp blades in several (well two) places, so please, please take care when attempting this. I don’t want to read in any comments about cuts, and missing fingertips, or worse. Take care of yourselves, and if you find a better way of disassembling the Charmera that doesn’t involve blades, please let me know.
A couple of weeks ago, in December of 2025, I picked up a Kodak Charmera, a small ‘keychain’ camera. In fact, I have three Charmeras now; my original ‘rainbows and stars’ design, which is a normal unmodified version, and two others, which have remained in their boxes. This post is about the second Charmera, which I was hoping would be used for a full-spectrum conversion.
As a reminder, the Charmera is a small, no tiny, digital camera with a 1.6MP sensor and a tiny LCD screen. The controls are minimal, an on/off button, which also doubles as a menu selector, the shutter button, and three buttons on the back. One for playback/select items and two toggle buttons that cycle through the different filters. The shutter speed is fixed at around 1/30s, and images are stored on a microSD card. On the bottom of the device, next to the microSD card slot, is a USB-C socket for charging the camera or transferring files. There are six different designs of the Charmera, with a seventh transparent design as a ‘special’, and they’re sold in ‘blind’ boxes, so you don’t actually know which one you’ve got until you open the box.
One thing I wondered with the original Charmera, as I do with all my cameras, was about it’s infrared sensitivity. With a 720nm infrared filter held over the lens I got a lovely result, and with red, green, and blue filters, made some nice digital aerochromes and trichromes. So I was certainly encouraged going into this experiment. In this case, I’m hoping to open up the Charmera and remove the IR cut filter in front of the sensor to make it truly full-spectrum. In this condition, the sensor will be sensitive to all wavelengths of light, from ultraviolet to infrared, and with 720nm and (a newly acquired) 590nm filters, I hope I might get some interesting results.
Opening the blind box revealed that I had the ‘Kodak red’ version of the Charmera, which seemed appropriate considering what I wanted to do with it. Looking at the sealed camera, I wondered how I might get into it, but from a previous test with my original Charmera I knew that with a fine blade I could prise the back off the camera. You have to be really careful, and not press too hard with the blade. Once the back starts to come off, you can separate the back from the camera, it’s just held together with clips. One thing: if you’ve previously used the Charmera, make sure that you take out the microSD card. This will stop the main board from being removed from the body, and I think this is where I went wrong later.
Don’t pull the back away from the camera, the LCD screen is connected to the main board with a thin ribbon wire, and you don’t want the break that. I’ve seen videos where the user has opened the tab connecting the ribbon wire to the main board and separated the LCD screen completely, but you don’t have to do that, so long as you are careful. Lift the battery off the main board, this is held on with double sided tape, and gently pull out the speaker. Be very careful with this, the wires are very thin. I found it best to tug gently on the wires until the speaker is partially removed and then pull it completely out with tweezers.
The next stage is to remove the main board. The is fixed to the body with two tiny screws. (Remember to check that you’ve removed the microSD card.) When these are removed keep them safe, don’t lose them. The whole circuit board should fall out leaving two parts, the LCD back, with circuit board, speaker, and battery attached, and the now empty front of the camera. The sensor and lens assembly is connected to the front of the board with another ribbon wire, and this just pops into a mount in the front of the camera.
To get to the IR cut filter you need to pry the lens from the sensor. I was lucky to have a fine-blade medical scalpel, but a small X-acto (box cutter) should do to trick. Again, this seems to be lightly glued together, but once the two parts are partially separated, it’s easy to pull apart. This should reveal the small sensor on one side, and the lens and cut filter on the other. You can’t miss the IR cut filter, it’s the circular glass, and reflects light with a lovely pink hue. I tried to get this out in one piece with my blade, but it’s so thin that it just broke, so I just dug it out as best as I could. Underneath you can see the lens, and all you need to do is squeeze the two parts back together. I think that the foam padding on the back of the sensor holds the lens assembly securely in place when the main board is reattached, so you shouldn’t have to glue it together. As you’ll see shortly, it might be better not to glue the lens to the sensor in case adjustments have to be made.
Reassembling the Charmera is then just a matter of positioning the lens assembly in its socket, reattaching the main board with the two screws, and putting the speaker and battery back in place. Once all this is done, the camera back can be clipped back into place. Now it’s time to power up and test your nice new full-spectrum Charmera.
And this is where everything came slightly unstuck for me. Up close, the view through the LCD screen looked great, with all of the images having a lovely pink tinge. I took the camera to the window, and although the sun had set, the image looked like a full-spectrum image. I took an image of the view, and transferred it to the phone. It was blurred. It’s a known fact that infrared wavelengths have a slightly different point of focus to visible wavelengths, and the IR cut filter has a small refractive index that the manufacturers adjust for when making digital cameras. I was hoping that the cut filter of the Charmera was thin enough that this would not have been important, but it seems like it is.
I reopened the Charmera and started to take it apart, which was going perfectly well until I tried to remove the main board from the body. It just wouldn’t come out. And then I remembered the microSD card, which was still sitting in the camera. When I removed that the board came out easily, but when I tried to power the disassembled camera to check focus, it was dead. The only thing I can think of was that I tried to pull the board out with the microSD card in place, and somewhere along the line I broke something. So now I have a dead red Charmera. It’s a shame, I really liked that design.
If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow my WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline on Mastodon.
#Abstract #Aerochrome #Charmera #Digital #Experimental #Filters #Infrared #Kodak #KodakCharmera #LoFi #Retro #ToyCamera #Trichrome #VintageVibes
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Keith Hackett reacts to Bobby Thomas incident in Coventry loss vs Birmingham: ‘He deserved it’
Credit: ITV, Sky Sports Mon 5 January 2026 17:45, UK Keith Hackett believes that Coventry City defender Bobby…
#Birmingham #UnitedKingdom #UK #GB #England #Headlines #News #Europe #EU #BirminghamCity #BobbyThomas #Britain #CoventryCity #GreatBritain #KeithHackett #PhilNeumann
https://www.europesays.com/uk/676082/ -
Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman pledged $500,000 to assist first responders combating brushfires in Australia six years ago. P!nk made the same donation. #MusicIsLove https://youtu.be/c9jmy_biuz4?si=l3uRq4LyZ0sTf9Ox
https://youtu.be/c9jmy_biuz4?si=l3uRq4LyZ0sTf9Ox -
Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman pledged $500,000 to assist first responders combating brushfires in Australia six years ago. P!nk made the same donation. #MusicIsLove https://youtu.be/c9jmy_biuz4?si=l3uRq4LyZ0sTf9Ox
https://youtu.be/c9jmy_biuz4?si=l3uRq4LyZ0sTf9Ox -
Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman pledged $500,000 to assist first responders combating brushfires in Australia six years ago. P!nk made the same donation. #MusicIsLove https://youtu.be/c9jmy_biuz4?si=l3uRq4LyZ0sTf9Ox
https://youtu.be/c9jmy_biuz4?si=l3uRq4LyZ0sTf9Ox -
RE: https://mastodon.mit.edu/@keithdpatch/115770028565331973
#Safety101 #H2Safety
How can a French factory reopen after an explosion kills 2 workers, without finding the cause of the blast?Silicone plants often use hydrogen; unsafe #hydrogen levels can explode; 1 died in this plant in 2016 & a 2nd safety incident in 2025!!
It makes me wonder if this plant is under new US "safety" regulations, or still follows EU requirements...[insert smirk emoji here!]
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RE: https://mastodon.mit.edu/@keithdpatch/115770028565331973
#Safety101 #H2Safety
How can a French factory reopen after an explosion kills 2 workers, without finding the cause of the blast?Silicone plants often use hydrogen; unsafe #hydrogen levels can explode; 1 died in this plant in 2016 & a 2nd safety incident in 2025!!
It makes me wonder if this plant is under new US "safety" regulations, or still follows EU requirements...[insert smirk emoji here!]
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RE: https://mastodon.mit.edu/@keithdpatch/115770028565331973
#Safety101 #H2Safety
How can a French factory reopen after an explosion kills 2 workers, without finding the cause of the blast?Silicone plants often use hydrogen; unsafe #hydrogen levels can explode; 1 died in this plant in 2016 & a 2nd safety incident in 2025!!
It makes me wonder if this plant is under new US "safety" regulations, or still follows EU requirements...[insert smirk emoji here!]
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Keith Jarrett - "Restoration Ruin" (1968)
Jarrett does baroque folk pop? He sings on most every track. Bizarre and excellent.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_khgwHqVIpM86rxzv9RGHHloQGWdicKHm4
#NowPlaying #KeithJarrett #vinyl #VinylRecords @vinylrecords
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Keith Urban’s Reported Change of Heart Has Nicole Kidman’s Friends ‘Begging Her’ Not To Give in
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s friendship might be taking a warmer turn in the New Year. Since the…
#NewsBeep #News #US #USA #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #Celebrities #Entertainment #KeithUrban #KidmanandUrban #NicoleKidman #SheKnows #VanityFairOscarParty
https://www.newsbeep.com/us/382736/ -
Keith Urban’s Reported Change of Heart Has Nicole Kidman’s Friends ‘Begging Her’ Not To Give in
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s friendship might be taking a warmer turn in the New Year. Since the…
#NewsBeep #News #US #USA #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #Celebrities #Entertainment #KeithUrban #KidmanandUrban #NicoleKidman #SheKnows #VanityFairOscarParty
https://www.newsbeep.com/us/382736/ -
@keithedwards.bsky.social discusses the viral conversation between reporter #RyanGrim and comedian #TimDillon that has taken over social media. He explores the implications of their discussion and shifts focus to the breaking news regarding the #JeffreyEpstein case. youtu.be/i1Haf_sHit0?...
THIS IS F**KING CRAZY.. -
@keithedwards.bsky.social discusses the viral conversation between reporter #RyanGrim and comedian #TimDillon that has taken over social media. He explores the implications of their discussion and shifts focus to the breaking news regarding the #JeffreyEpstein case. youtu.be/i1Haf_sHit0?...
THIS IS F**KING CRAZY.. -
@keithedwards.bsky.social discusses the viral conversation between reporter #RyanGrim and comedian #TimDillon that has taken over social media. He explores the implications of their discussion and shifts focus to the breaking news regarding the #JeffreyEpstein case. youtu.be/i1Haf_sHit0?...
THIS IS F**KING CRAZY.. -
Looking Ahead: My Intentions For 2026
About this time last year, I jotted down some intentions for 2025, ‘a few ideas of the things that I really want to do over the coming twelve months’. I did quite well with these: I resurrected a few old cameras, like the Kodak 1A and 3A folding cameras, and the Vest Pocket Kodak; I finally got to use the medium format half-frame beastie that’s the Bencini Koroll 2; and I actually used my only 127 film in the Purma Special on a 127 Day this year. I also tumbled down the rabbit hole that was the Rapid film system, which led to some great fun with colour emulsions, redscaling, and even trying some EBS photography, or exposing both sides of the emulsion, and of course I added a load more weird and wonderful cameras to my collection.
The only part of my ‘intentions’ for 2025 that I didn’t really get anywhere with was glitching; taking a perfectly good photograph in digital format and altering the data contained in it to produce a corrupted image. As a reminder, images can be glitched in a number of ways: with a Hex Editor, to alter details of individual pixels in an image; processing a digital photograph in a program not intended for editing image files; or using a script in a programming language to corrupt the file. This is known as databending, but there is also circuit bending, which either takes an image and corrupts it using a specially made image processor, or using a camera where the hardware within the camera has been physically altered so that the image saved to the card is corrupted.
A corrupted 3D image, taken with the Fujifilm W3 Real 3d stereo digital camera. The file has been databent by processing the file in the audio editing program Audacity.I already have one circuit bent camera, and also a couple of cameras with failing sensors that produce lovely glitchy images, but I’ve also recently obtained an old Digital8 video camera that I hope will allow me to use a circuit bent device called the Mismatcher Petite to corrupt digital images and videos. This year, I also picked up a scanner, the Epson Perfection v750 Pro flatbed scanner, and a little micro computer to use it with. Onto this computer I’ve loaded some of the programs and applications that I hope will aid me with databending and glitching.
The Mismatcher Petite, an image modification device the I’ll use in conjunction with the Sony Digital8 camera below.I’ve not forgotten film, of course, and although I’m not really in a position to soup and develop my own films, perhaps I can ‘glitch’ some instant film, or deliberately introduce light leaks to exposed 35mm and medium format film, for instance. Of course, there will always be new (to me) cameras to play with, and if last year is anything to go by, not all of these are light tight, and I have several rolls of expired film to use. With glitching, be it digital or film, you never quite know what result you’ll get, and that for me is what will make the coming year so exciting.
A digital image taken with an Olympus Pen E-PL1 and a homemade Deakinizer (a wide-angle effect lens held reversed over the lens). The image has been databent by processing the image in the audio editor, Audacity.If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow the ‘Snapshot’ WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline.
#Adapters #AgfaRapid #Cassette #CircuitBending #Databending #Experimental #Expired #Glitch #Inspiration #Intentions #LoFi #Motivation #Rapid #VintageCamera
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Looking Ahead: My Intentions For 2026
About this time last year, I jotted down some intentions for 2025, ‘a few ideas of the things that I really want to do over the coming twelve months’. I did quite well with these: I resurrected a few old cameras, like the Kodak 1A and 3A folding cameras, and the Vest Pocket Kodak; I finally got to use the medium format half-frame beastie that’s the Bencini Koroll 2; and I actually used my only 127 film in the Purma Special on a 127 Day this year. I also tumbled down the rabbit hole that was the Rapid film system, which led to some great fun with colour emulsions, redscaling, and even trying some EBS photography, or exposing both sides of the emulsion, and of course I added a load more weird and wonderful cameras to my collection.
The only part of my ‘intentions’ for 2025 that I didn’t really get anywhere with was glitching; taking a perfectly good photograph in digital format and altering the data contained in it to produce a corrupted image. As a reminder, images can be glitched in a number of ways: with a Hex Editor, to alter details of individual pixels in an image; processing a digital photograph in a program not intended for editing image files; or using a script in a programming language to corrupt the file. This is known as databending, but there is also circuit bending, which either takes an image and corrupts it using a specially made image processor, or using a camera where the hardware within the camera has been physically altered so that the image saved to the card is corrupted.
A corrupted 3D image, taken with the Fujifilm W3 Real 3d stereo digital camera. The file has been databent by processing the file in the audio editing program Audacity.I already have one circuit bent camera, and also a couple of cameras with failing sensors that produce lovely glitchy images, but I’ve also recently obtained an old Digital8 video camera that I hope will allow me to use a circuit bent device called the Mismatcher Petite to corrupt digital images and videos. This year, I also picked up a scanner, the Epson Perfection v750 Pro flatbed scanner, and a little micro computer to use it with. Onto this computer I’ve loaded some of the programs and applications that I hope will aid me with databending and glitching.
The Mismatcher Petite, an image modification device the I’ll use in conjunction with the Sony Digital8 camera below.I’ve not forgotten film, of course, and although I’m not really in a position to soup and develop my own films, perhaps I can ‘glitch’ some instant film, or deliberately introduce light leaks to exposed 35mm and medium format film, for instance. Of course, there will always be new (to me) cameras to play with, and if last year is anything to go by, not all of these are light tight, and I have several rolls of expired film to use. With glitching, be it digital or film, you never quite know what result you’ll get, and that for me is what will make the coming year so exciting.
A digital image taken with an Olympus Pen E-PL1 and a homemade Deakinizer (a wide-angle effect lens held reversed over the lens). The image has been databent by processing the image in the audio editor, Audacity.If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow the ‘Snapshot’ WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline.
#Adapters #AgfaRapid #Cassette #CircuitBending #Databending #Experimental #Expired #Glitch #Inspiration #Intentions #LoFi #Motivation #Rapid #VintageCamera
-
Looking Ahead: My Intentions For 2026
About this time last year, I jotted down some intentions for 2025, ‘a few ideas of the things that I really want to do over the coming twelve months’. I did quite well with these: I resurrected a few old cameras, like the Kodak 1A and 3A folding cameras, and the Vest Pocket Kodak; I finally got to use the medium format half-frame beastie that’s the Bencini Koroll 2; and I actually used my only 127 film in the Purma Special on a 127 Day this year. I also tumbled down the rabbit hole that was the Rapid film system, which led to some great fun with colour emulsions, redscaling, and even trying some EBS photography, or exposing both sides of the emulsion, and of course I added a load more weird and wonderful cameras to my collection.
The only part of my ‘intentions’ for 2025 that I didn’t really get anywhere with was glitching; taking a perfectly good photograph in digital format and altering the data contained in it to produce a corrupted image. As a reminder, images can be glitched in a number of ways: with a Hex Editor, to alter details of individual pixels in an image; processing a digital photograph in a program not intended for editing image files; or using a script in a programming language to corrupt the file. This is known as databending, but there is also circuit bending, which either takes an image and corrupts it using a specially made image processor, or using a camera where the hardware within the camera has been physically altered so that the image saved to the card is corrupted.
A corrupted 3D image, taken with the Fujifilm W3 Real 3d stereo digital camera. The file has been databent by processing the file in the audio editing program Audacity.I already have one circuit bent camera, and also a couple of cameras with failing sensors that produce lovely glitchy images, but I’ve also recently obtained an old Digital8 video camera that I hope will allow me to use a circuit bent device called the Mismatcher Petite to corrupt digital images and videos. This year, I also picked up a scanner, the Epson Perfection v750 Pro flatbed scanner, and a little micro computer to use it with. Onto this computer I’ve loaded some of the programs and applications that I hope will aid me with databending and glitching.
The Mismatcher Petite, an image modification device the I’ll use in conjunction with the Sony Digital8 camera below.I’ve not forgotten film, of course, and although I’m not really in a position to soup and develop my own films, perhaps I can ‘glitch’ some instant film, or deliberately introduce light leaks to exposed 35mm and medium format film, for instance. Of course, there will always be new (to me) cameras to play with, and if last year is anything to go by, not all of these are light tight, and I have several rolls of expired film to use. With glitching, be it digital or film, you never quite know what result you’ll get, and that for me is what will make the coming year so exciting.
A digital image taken with an Olympus Pen E-PL1 and a homemade Deakinizer (a wide-angle effect lens held reversed over the lens). The image has been databent by processing the image in the audio editor, Audacity.If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow the ‘Snapshot’ WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline.
#Adapters #AgfaRapid #Cassette #CircuitBending #Databending #Experimental #Expired #Glitch #Inspiration #Intentions #LoFi #Motivation #Rapid #VintageCamera
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Looking Ahead: My Intentions For 2026
About this time last year, I jotted down some intentions for 2025, ‘a few ideas of the things that I really want to do over the coming twelve months’. I did quite well with these: I resurrected a few old cameras, like the Kodak 1A and 3A folding cameras, and the Vest Pocket Kodak; I finally got to use the medium format half-frame beastie that’s the Bencini Koroll 2; and I actually used my only 127 film in the Purma Special on a 127 Day this year. I also tumbled down the rabbit hole that was the Rapid film system, which led to some great fun with colour emulsions, redscaling, and even trying some EBS photography, or exposing both sides of the emulsion, and of course I added a load more weird and wonderful cameras to my collection.
The only part of my ‘intentions’ for 2025 that I didn’t really get anywhere with was glitching; taking a perfectly good photograph in digital format and altering the data contained in it to produce a corrupted image. As a reminder, images can be glitched in a number of ways: with a Hex Editor, to alter details of individual pixels in an image; processing a digital photograph in a program not intended for editing image files; or using a script in a programming language to corrupt the file. This is known as databending, but there is also circuit bending, which either takes an image and corrupts it using a specially made image processor, or using a camera where the hardware within the camera has been physically altered so that the image saved to the card is corrupted.
A corrupted 3D image, taken with the Fujifilm W3 Real 3d stereo digital camera. The file has been databent by processing the file in the audio editing program Audacity.I already have one circuit bent camera, and also a couple of cameras with failing sensors that produce lovely glitchy images, but I’ve also recently obtained an old Digital8 video camera that I hope will allow me to use a circuit bent device called the Mismatcher Petite to corrupt digital images and videos. This year, I also picked up a scanner, the Epson Perfection v750 Pro flatbed scanner, and a little micro computer to use it with. Onto this computer I’ve loaded some of the programs and applications that I hope will aid me with databending and glitching.
The Mismatcher Petite, an image modification device the I’ll use in conjunction with the Sony Digital8 camera below.I’ve not forgotten film, of course, and although I’m not really in a position to soup and develop my own films, perhaps I can ‘glitch’ some instant film, or deliberately introduce light leaks to exposed 35mm and medium format film, for instance. Of course, there will always be new (to me) cameras to play with, and if last year is anything to go by, not all of these are light tight, and I have several rolls of expired film to use. With glitching, be it digital or film, you never quite know what result you’ll get, and that for me is what will make the coming year so exciting.
A digital image taken with an Olympus Pen E-PL1 and a homemade Deakinizer (a wide-angle effect lens held reversed over the lens). The image has been databent by processing the image in the audio editor, Audacity.If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow the ‘Snapshot’ WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline.
#Adapters #AgfaRapid #Cassette #CircuitBending #Databending #Experimental #Expired #Glitch #Inspiration #Intentions #LoFi #Motivation #Rapid #VintageCamera
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Looking Ahead: My Intentions For 2026
About this time last year, I jotted down some intentions for 2025, ‘a few ideas of the things that I really want to do over the coming twelve months’. I did quite well with these: I resurrected a few old cameras, like the Kodak 1A and 3A folding cameras, and the Vest Pocket Kodak; I finally got to use the medium format half-frame beastie that’s the Bencini Koroll 2; and I actually used my only 127 film in the Purma Special on a 127 Day this year. I also tumbled down the rabbit hole that was the Rapid film system, which led to some great fun with colour emulsions, redscaling, and even trying some EBS photography, or exposing both sides of the emulsion, and of course I added a load more weird and wonderful cameras to my collection.
The only part of my ‘intentions’ for 2025 that I didn’t really get anywhere with was glitching; taking a perfectly good photograph in digital format and altering the data contained in it to produce a corrupted image. As a reminder, images can be glitched in a number of ways: with a Hex Editor, to alter details of individual pixels in an image; processing a digital photograph in a program not intended for editing image files; or using a script in a programming language to corrupt the file. This is known as databending, but there is also circuit bending, which either takes an image and corrupts it using a specially made image processor, or using a camera where the hardware within the camera has been physically altered so that the image saved to the card is corrupted.
A corrupted 3D image, taken with the Fujifilm W3 Real 3d stereo digital camera. The file has been databent by processing the file in the audio editing program Audacity.I already have one circuit bent camera, and also a couple of cameras with failing sensors that produce lovely glitchy images, but I’ve also recently obtained an old Digital8 video camera that I hope will allow me to use a circuit bent device called the Mismatcher Petite to corrupt digital images and videos. This year, I also picked up a scanner, the Epson Perfection v750 Pro flatbed scanner, and a little micro computer to use it with. Onto this computer I’ve loaded some of the programs and applications that I hope will aid me with databending and glitching.
The Mismatcher Petite, an image modification device the I’ll use in conjunction with the Sony Digital8 camera below.I’ve not forgotten film, of course, and although I’m not really in a position to soup and develop my own films, perhaps I can ‘glitch’ some instant film, or deliberately introduce light leaks to exposed 35mm and medium format film, for instance. Of course, there will always be new (to me) cameras to play with, and if last year is anything to go by, not all of these are light tight, and I have several rolls of expired film to use. With glitching, be it digital or film, you never quite know what result you’ll get, and that for me is what will make the coming year so exciting.
A digital image taken with an Olympus Pen E-PL1 and a homemade Deakinizer (a wide-angle effect lens held reversed over the lens). The image has been databent by processing the image in the audio editor, Audacity.If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow the ‘Snapshot’ WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline.
#Adapters #AgfaRapid #Cassette #CircuitBending #Databending #Experimental #Expired #Glitch #Inspiration #Intentions #LoFi #Motivation #Rapid #VintageCamera
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@LouderPosts the guy is dead dude https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Flint #KeithFlint
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@LouderPosts the guy is dead dude https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Flint #KeithFlint
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@LouderPosts the guy is dead dude https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Flint #KeithFlint
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@LouderPosts the guy is dead dude https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Flint #KeithFlint
