"Digital film roll" brings analog cameras out of retirement

Back in 2018, Italy's Samuel Mello Medeiros hit Kickstarter with a big ol' digital back for classic film cameras, followed by the next generation in 2020. Now the team has returned with a slicker proposition, a "high-quality digital film roll" called the I'm Back Film.

As before, the idea for the I'm Back Film tech is to combine "the nostalgic charm of film photography with the convenience of digital technology."

This latest offering shapes up as a Kodak-like film roll that sprouts a 20-megapixel Four Thirds CMOS sensor from Sony instead of a roll of film, essentially bringing old analog cameras out of retirement and giving them a new lease of digital life.

"One notable feature of this sensor is its 12-bit digital output capability, which enables it to efficiently read out signals from its 21.27 million effective pixels at a high-speed rate of 27.27 frames per second in still picture mode," notes the project page.

The 4/3 sensor is obviously smaller than full frame, but in order to offer 35-mm-format full-frame imagery potential, the team has matched the sensor with a simple wide-angle adapter that attaches to the front of any lens on the analog camera host.

There's still a base unit that the host camera will need to be attached to via the tripod mount, but the result is much less chunky than previous I'm Back devices. This sports a 1.5-inch LCD panel, has a microphone and speaker as well as an onboard battery, Wi-Fi is included for wireless transfer to a mobile device for editing or sharing, and there's a companion app too. Snapped digital images in RAW or JPEG format are stored on SD card media.

The project is currently at the working prototype phase of development, and has turned to Kickstarter to bring it to production. Perks currently start at CHF 639 (~US$710), and if all goes to plan with the already funded campaign, shipping is estimated to start from July 2024. The video below has more.

Source: I'm Back