Photographer Ancient crammed a fully functional computer into the tiny gap of a lens adapter, which may seem like an odd location to put one, but that’s just the goal. This adapter, which connects DSLR lenses to mirrorless camera bodies, is often just a hole in a metal item, but Ancient didn’t think that was adequate. Instead, they transformed that often-overlooked sliver into a home for a miniature computer and a programmable aperture.
Ancient recovered a transparent LCD screen from an ancient phone that was well past its prime. After the backlight and other unneeded layers were removed, the screen sat in the light path as if nothing was there, unless the computer commanded it to block the way. Under the LCD is a custom PCB that Ancient designed from scratch, complete with a configuration that allows the entire assembly to fit into the adaptor enclosure.
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Power is delivered to the rig via some gold contacts on the adapter, which Ancient meticulously matched to an odd pinout after extensive investigation. A few buttons slapped on the outside of the housing allow you to control the computer directly. The firmware for this little board is available on Github under AncientJames/aperture, and it handles all of the LCD’s sophisticated functions.
The LCD functions similarly to a dynamic iris, with no mechanical parts to bother with and only a collection of pixels that change from clear to opaque and back again to change the shape of the aperture in whatever insane way you like. Unlike a regular iris which just opens and shuts the whole thing, this digital one can do all sorts of interesting things, like display a lot of shapes continuously or even generate animations that change over time.
Photographers gain a lot more control over bokeh and depth effects. Your out-of-focus area can now be a spinning flower, a collection of caution signs, or even tiny little animations reminiscent of childhood cartoons. When you move the camera while the aperture scans horizontally, you get a really amazing parallax wobble that looks like 3D without the need for repeated exposures or post-processing.
