Krishna Kumar's SLR Handycam - Possibly the world's tiniest

A fascinating piece of news to warm the cockles of any gizmo geek's heart!!!

A 55x40 mm pocket-sized Single Lens Reflex (SLR) Camera which in all probability may be the world's tiniest working replica of a SLR handy-cam.

The brain-child of soft-spoken graphic designer and photography aficionado Krishna Kumar from Kasargod district in Kerala; the compact creation has been named Cu327 (The chemical nomenclature for copper and melting point of lead).

After an unsuccessful bid in 2005 with an earlier model, Krishna is now intending to enter his latest handiwork which he proudly proclaims is the “World's smallest handmade SLR camera” into the Guinness Book of World Records. As of date, the 1962 built - Rollei replica remains the smallest wholly operational standard film camera in the world utilizing a 35 mm strip of film.

Krishna's miniature manually-made camera comprises of 90% copper along-with other parts such as the shutter, flip mirror, viewfinder, film advanced liver, film cartridge, cartridge carrier. It also has focusable lens with aperture and two extensional lenses for overall and broad angle effects.

The idea for the smallest camera was inspired by a capacitor. Says this gadget freak “One day while I was studying for my graduation exam, there was a capacitor on the table which looked like a camera lens hood at an angle.

I got very curious and just closed my book and starting checking out the capacitor. I modified it a bit. Well, it did look like a camera lens after modification. Ok, done with the lens but body? Now, that inspired me to make a small camera,” informs Krishna.

However, to turn this inspiration into a reality in the form of a working camera model; came after painstaking investigation and effort of more than two years. This tiny camera has roughly sixty-five hand-made parts other than the screw, gear, and spring. Each part is miniscule and very complex.

It will not function properly even if there is a slight change in the size. Its lens hood is carved out of PVC pipe, while the aperture comprises of 4 blades, 3 f point with the f points being roughly 10, 6 and 4. An unexposed x ray Sheet has been used to make the blade.

One requirement of this mini camera is that film rolls needs to be loaded in pitch dark studio and only then pictures clicked. That is because while the pictures taken indoors come out just fine, the outdoor pictures tend to get over-exposed. Krishna opines that by using the flash this problem could be easily solved. The chemicals and black and white film rolls have been imported from Europe as these were is not available in the country.

About future inventions and new ideas Krishna says that in future he has plans to develop a unique digital camera body and lens. Not like the conventional camera body and lens but with a new idea and in a different direction. The camera will have full manual control and no automatic controls which will then enable a photographer to bring to the fore his latent creativity.