Michael Fitzmayer's CMOS Holga Combines the Iconic Point-and-Shoot with Nintendo's Game Boy Camera

Self-described software/retro developer and "hacking culture cultivator" Michael Fitzmayer has turned an iconic Holga film camera into a digital camera — using, oddly, the sensor from the classic Nintendo Game Boy Camera.

"The Holga is a medium format 120 film camera, made in Hong Kong, known for its low-fidelity aesthetic," Fitzmayer explains of the project's parts. "The Holga's low-cost construction and simple meniscus lens often yields pictures that display vignetting, blur, light leaks, and other distortions. The camera's limitations have brought it a cult following among some photographers, and Holga photos have won awards and competitions in art and news photography."

Another photographic device which has something of a cult following is the Game Boy Camera, a console accessory launched by Nintendo in 1998 and designed to capture 128×112 grayscale images from a 128×128 CMOS sensor. Like the Holga, the images which come out of the other side aren't exactly high fidelity — but, again like the Holga, for its fans that's entirely the point.

"I dug out my old Game Boy Camera and removed its image sensor, the Mitsubishi M64282FP," Fitzmayer explains. "I used an [STMicroelectronics] STM32F401 microcontroller board to read the image data and store the final images on an SD card via SPI. This was partly because I had some in stock and partly because I am familiar with the product family. I quickly got some useful results and was motivated to finish what I'd started. Since the image sensor needs 5V input voltage, I helped with a step-up converter. The camera is powered by a LiPo battery and can be charged via USB using a TP4056 charging circuit."

Fitzmayer's creation isn't the first time we've seen the Game Boy Camera accessory turned into a more professional camera. Back in July last year Christopher Graves unveiled the Game Boy Camera M, which adapted the hardware from a Game Boy Pocket into a Leica-inspired shell with interchangeable lenses, a cold-shoe flash mount, back-lit IPS display, and a battery capable of driving the device for up to eight hours.

"In the end there was not much left of the Holga," Fitzmayer admits of the conversion. "The large lens was no use for the tiny image sensor, so I decided to adapt the optics from the Game Boy Camera. It was still a good choice. The Holga is very cheap and widely available, and the body is very light with plenty of room for the electronics.

"I could certainly improve the firmware to output JPEGs directly instead of Portable Grey Map (PGM) files, but overall I am very happy with the result. The CMOS Holga is portable, super lightweight and produces quirky black and white images with a charm of their own. The camera has no display, no automatic exposure control and no adjustable focus — it just offers the raw basics of a simple point-and-shoot camera. No extras, no gimmicks — just what I had in mind."

The full project has been written up on GitHub, along with the source code and pre-compiled binaries for the STM32 firmware which drives the camera.