You always remember your past love, and for a lot of digital photographers, that was the Game Boy Camera: a $90 low-resolution digital digital camera for the Game Boy launched by Nintendo in 1998. Almost 1 / 4 century later, there are nonetheless devoted followers of the lo-fi shooter, together with Christopher Graves, who turned a Game Boy Pocket right into a surprisingly professional looking mirrorless camera that takes Game Boy Camera pictures to the subsequent stage.

Digital cameras had solely turn out to be out there to customers simply 4 years earlier than the Game Boy Camera accent was launched, together with fashions just like the Apple QuickTake (made by Kodak) that might snap 0.3-megapixel photographs and got here with a price ticket simply shy of $1,000. With a 128×128-pixel CMOS sensor that snapped and saved photographs at a decision of simply 128×112 pixels (the equal of 0.001434-megapixels) in a stunning 4 shades of grey, the Game Boy Camera was probably the most restricted and primary digital cameras ever launched to customers, however its distinctive pixelated aesthetic stays widespread even at this time.

Modern Game Boy Camera photographers have give you methods to use it to snap photographs of the moon, and even seize coloration photographs with some further submit processing, however Graves has give you what is well probably the most polished Game Boy Camera hack we’ve seen so far. He’s tentatively dubbed it the Game Boy Camera M, because it’s technically a mirrorless shooter.

The guts of the Game Boy Camera M are a sacrificed Game Boy Pocket: a follow-up to the unique Game Boy which was smaller, slimmer, and much much less battery hungry than its predecessor. It now sits inside a customized shell full with a leatherette end wrapped round it. The GBP’s PCB works alongside a handful of different customized PCBs, whereas the unique unlit display has been upgraded with a backlit IPS show that features brightness changes. To maximize battery life, as a substitute of gobbling up a pair of AAA batteries, the Game Boy Camera M makes use of a chargeable 1,800 mAh battery pack as a substitute, which retains the digital camera operating for as much as eight hours.

The controls from a Game Boy Advance SP had been used as a substitute of the Game Boy Pocket’s, with one of many motion buttons positioned on the again of the digital camera subsequent to the D-pad, whereas the opposite sits on prime and serves because the shutter button. Graves hasn’t tried enjoying any precise Game Boy video games on the digital camera, however thinks “it could be fun for a turn-based RPG like Pokémon,” because the button structure and digital camera shell permits for one-handed gameplay.

To make the Game Boy Camera M look as very like an actual mirrorless digital camera as doable, Graves additionally closely modified a Game Boy Camera cartridge, preserving its unique PCB and relocating its sensor, which now sits behind a CS mount holding a manually centered 5-50-millimeter varifocal lens. Graves says it may simply be swapped for one thing bigger and extra succesful, however prefers this lens for practicality causes. “Sure, I can put on a massive Canon lens with huge zoom for “the clicks”, however that’s not what I’m thinking about. This is a very private and egocentric challenge imply to enhance my GBCam pictures and develop my expertise as a newbie, self-taught designer.”

The outcomes… properly… nonetheless seem like they arrive from a 24-year-old, 2-bit digital digital camera, however the Game Boy Camera M offers Graves extra inventive freedom with regards to enjoying with totally different lenses and focus changes. Graves additionally says there’s nonetheless numerous work to be finished on his creation earlier than he makes an attempt to create a DIY equipment for different Game Boy Camera fans to construct their very own. But primarily based on the suggestions he’s gotten after sharing the Game Boy Camera M online, there are many lo-fi pictures fans keen to do that factor out.