Shot using a bent PowerShot S2IS
I love the way the same bend points can look so different based on the lighting, shutter speed and aperture. Seems like there are endless combinations of effects to explore. Shoutout to u/gork_online for the idea. Definitely gonna be experimenting more with this. Also started working on my second cam, super keen to get that one finished to show y’all
After scraping info from this sub for a while I was inspired to finally build a glitch cam. This was a journey honestly and even though I have quite a bit of experience working with electronics, I destroyed 3 cameras through various silly mistakes before completing this one. It’s a shame that that there’s no real complete guide for bending digicams so I had to learn just by giving it a go.
I got a good deal for this PowerShot S2IS on marketplace but didn’t think to check basic functionality. It had a sticky shutter problem which meant the shutter would not fire, leading to really overexposed photos in daylight. This is a common problem with this line of cameras, I’ve since discovered.
I proceeded anyway to bend the ADC using the big test points for the digital data pins to get crazy colours from different combinations of shorts and capacitors, and I enjoyed that a lot, but I wasn’t really satisfied. I wanted those amazing melts from the sensor.
The sensor connector pins were extremely difficult to reach due to components around it so I initially dismissed it, but after a week or so of deliberation, I opened it back up and managed with a steady hand and a microscope to get some good connections to the higher numbered vertical clock pins. I connected these to pots, capacitors and switches, which allowed me to tune the melts. I was stoked with the results but I was unable to take photos in daylight due to the issue I mentioned before.
So after doing all of that I decided to completely disassemble the camera to reach the lens assembly, which I disassembled to manually clean the shutter blades. All this while trying to not rip out the wires I already soldered. And after all that, everything finally works great and now I can enjoy the camera for what it is. Honesty do not recommend this process and this might be a reason to avoid these lines of cameras altogether for future bends.
Anyway, the bends include a 10 line DIP switch for ADC effects and a pot and switch to tune the melts from the sensor. This was a lot of fun to work on but I regret that It looks super janky on the camera body. Next build I’m definitely gonna 3D print something to house all the electronics.
If anyone is interested in my project workflow and the bend points I used, I’ve posted them here.