Thread: This is what Kodak should have manufactured.

RE-35 | Digital cartridges for analog 35-mm cameras

That was protyped 12 years ago- died before introduction. I understand the problem was power, not enough room for a battery in the cassette along with electronics.

Silicon Film Technologies, Inc- suspended operation in 2001. If someone wanted to revisit this, new technology would make it easier. Still a hard problem.

I remember that Brian. I was hoping to use it in the M's. It's sad it never worked out but what a great idea. It would be a different world if it worked.

Yep, I remember that when they were first announced years ago. Would have been great on my Olympus Om 4.

Shame it never came off.

What is this witchery? Why is this not a product?

Remove completely the backplate from the analog camera, add a new (thicker) plate which holds battery/electronics.
This must be possible imo.

Originally Posted by Boid

What is this witchery? Why is this not a product?

There were a few things that couldn't be worked out. The most important was that there was no computer to control it. How would you control sensitivity, ISO? With film of course you load your preferred speed. That was one of the biggest obstacles. As Brian stated, power management was another biggie. So the dream vanished because they were thinking in analog terms and not really digital. They were thinking about digitizing an analog camera and not making a digital camera work like an analog camera.

Accepting this as the April fool trick that it was (see the disclaimer) I too would have liked to have seen it developed but I can't help thinking that if it could be done, it would have been done by now.

I'm sure most of you have seen this but here it is again for those who haven't.

sony DSC-WX1 into classic leica II DIY (film camera changes digital) - YouTube