One of my favorite April Fool's Day gags this year could have been released as a concept on any other day. It was a flexible image sensor that pulled out of a reel like a roll of 35mm film. The idea was that you could convert your old film cameras to digital just by popping it in.

Here we have a similar, and probably more practical design. Instead of a delicate, flexible sensor, the Digital Film comes in a rigid cartridge, similar in size and shape to the 126 film cartridges used in the Instamatic and other cameras. The CCD chip is held in place on the film plane, although presumably you'd need to remove the plate which keeps the film flat to make space.

The designer, Park Hyun Jin, has decided to use the film wind-on lever to save the images after they are taken – an odd choice as saving is automatic on any other digicam. Other than this, no specifics are given. A USB port is there to charge and to offload the images, and there are a couple of flashing lights, but that's about it.

Which got me thinking about how something like this might work. How would the shutter be synchronized to the sensor? Maybe it is just always on, and clever enough to record the light that comes in when the shutter is tripped. And how would you set ISO? The design has a theta-shaped knob which would engage the film rewind lever. Perhaps this could be used somehow.

Now we begin to see how intimate is the relationship between camera and sensor when compared to the old film and camera model. In those days, neither knew anything about the other. The co-dependence of today's cameras is why a plug-in digital film will probably never be made. If it was, though, I'd be first in line.

Digital Film [C9 Design via Yanko]

RE35 digital film April Fool's Day gag [RE35]

See Also: