Mangalore: Krishna Kumar Creates Smallest SLR Camera Manually
by Vinisha D'Souza
Pics: Dayanand Kukkaje
Mangalore, Jul 21: It may not be astonishing to come across youngsters who invent new things on their own. But here’s an invention by 28-year-old Krishna Kumar which can be termed ‘innovative’ and ‘unique’.
The Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera named Cu327 (chemical name of copper and melting point of lead) measuring just 56X35 mm has been created manually by Krishna.
Krishna, who hails from Kasargod, is a graphic designer by profession and worked for five years at Rahul Advertisers in the city. The camera is the result of hard work and efforts put in by him during his spare time for over six years.
The camera was developed out of his profound interest in photography. As a boy, Krishna had been interested in electronic items, art and photography. Using his wild imagination, he converted a capacitor into lens, later creating the body.
The camera made mainly out of copper includes a shutter, viewfinder, flip mirror, film cartridge carrier, film advanced liver, lens that can focus along with aperture and two extensional lenses mainly suited for macro photography.
Initially Kumar had created a simple compact camera measuring 28X20 mm. But due to poor performance by the camera, he moved on to build yet another camera measuring 38X22 mm. The improved version too failed to satisfy his expectations. Thus he created the 56X33 mm SLR camera which mainly is used for black and white macro photography.
The camera has about 65 handmade parts, barring the screw, gear and spring. The parts are very tiny and complicated. The lens hood is made out of PVC pipe and the aperture consists of four blades, 3 f points, f points are approximately 10, 6, 4. The blade is made out of an unexposed x ray sheet.
While the camera seems to be almost perfect, Kumar says that one has to load the film strip in a dark room and take pictures. While the indoor pictures are almost perfect, the outdoor pictures get over-exposed, he added.
The chemicals and films are imported from the US as they are not available in India.
Krishna did his schooling at Kumbla Higher Secondary School and completed his graduation in B Sc from Mangalore University. He is the only son of Kamalakshi and Late M Babu.
Krishna plans to enter his creation into the Guiness Book of World Records. At present, the Rollei, built in 1962 holds the record of being the smallest fully operational standard film cameras using 35 mm film roll.
More details about the camera and Krishna Kumar can be sought at his website www.crishx.com