In the days before digital cameras came along, Polaroid filled an important niche in the market. Instead of shooting through a whole roll of film and then waiting for a developer to make prints, you could get your photo almost instantly. But once digital cameras became practical and affordable, those benefits could no longer outweigh the cost of film. We’ve seen a resurgence in Polaroid interest as younger generations embrace physical media, but the film is still very expensive. That’s why Redditor Just_matty_dee converted a Polaroid into a digital camera to get the charm without the cost.
This is a Polaroid Sun 660 camera, which was on the market in the 1980s. Compared to other Polaroid cameras, it was special because it had ultrasonic autofocus. At a time when most Polaroid cameras (and low-end cameras in general) simply used tiny apertures for “infinite” focus, that was a really nice feature.
But Just_matty_dee couldn’t justify the cost of film. Even when purchased in bulk, the film will cost more than $2 per photo and that gets expensive fast. The camera Just_matty_dee purchased was also broken, so it would have required repair to work anyway. Instead, he converted it into a digital camera.
To perform the conversion, Just_matty_dee first removed as many of the internal components as possible. Thankfully, Polaroid cameras tend to be pretty roomy inside compared to conventional film cameras. That gave Just_matty_dee enough space to put a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W single-board computer inside the body. That captures photos through a Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3, which has a pretty nice 12-megapixel Sony IMX708 CMOS sensor — not exactly high-end, but plenty for a point-and-shoot camera.
A 1.3” LCD screen shows photo previews and there are a couple of buttons for the user interface. Power comes from a USB battery bank and Just_matty_dee programmed his own Python script, using the Picamera2 library, to capture and process the photos.
With the electronics complete, Just_matty_dee gave the camera a coat of yellow paint inspired by Max’s camera from the Life is Strange video game. The digital nature of this camera does reduce some of that physical media magic that makes Polaroid cameras so appealing, but it is now far more economical to operate.