Developments

Tricolor Filter System

A rotating drum containing three colored filters which rotates between exposures in order to simplify the process of taking color separation of photographs. Panchromatic black and white film is loaded in a modern automatically advanced 35mm SLR (Canon EOS series) and the filter mechanism triggers the shutter and advances the filter once for each additive primary color.

Automated Ciné-Transfer

Creates High-Definition Video transfers of 16mm motion pictures. A stepper motor engages the film advance machanism of a projector and is synchronized to a High Definition (HD) macro camera to photograpgh individual frames in the projector's "gate". A simplified and digital take on compact optical printers. A raspberry pi single board computer takes in the images and compiles them in the desired, time stamped, video format, or even a stream of raw images for maximum control for future color grading.

Darkroom Timer

A simple programmable timer to help photochemical photographers keep track of different stages of film development without having to take off gloves. Large arcade style buttons are used to start, stop, and move on to subsequent stages of a preprogrammed timer sequence. Large and colorful RGB 8-segment displays keep track of time and color changes at preprogrammed intervals.

Examples sequence for black and white developing:

Once chemistry is poured into the daylight tank, the user presses the start button on the large panel and a preprogrammed countdown for the development stage begins. As the timer nears the end of the cycle, the colors on the segmented display change from green, (or indeed any other color of the user's choosing) to red. Once the timer hits 0:00, it emits an audible warning and the user pours out the spent developer. Once the film is rinsed in the tank, the user can hit the start button again and the timer will start for the fixing stage. And so on, etc.
The ability to pre-program the timer and hit the buttons with clumsy gloves simplifies interfacing and increases precision. Gone are the days of fiddling with cellphone timer apps or staring at the clocks on walls.

The whole system is low voltage DC powered and water/developer/beer-proofed.

Another version with red and darkroom safe LEDs can be made for use in the darkroom for printing.

Digital Control Analog Music Synthesizer

Using a computer program to store different settings to control "analog" musical oscillators to generate musical tones and polyphonic symphonies. Analog synthesis, digital control. Rather than storing digital samples or using PWM to generate tones, the analog parameters of analog circuits (resistances) will be stored in the program and shifted in and out of a circuit automatically using e-switches engaged to a high-speed GPIO. The synthesizer can be used to be compatible with MIDI keyboards.