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Photography Culture

3D Printing Could Be a Very Big Part of the Photo Industry’s Sustainability

Chris Gampat
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06/27/2021
3 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Zeiss 35mm f1.4 ZM product images 4

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For years, I’ve been a huge advocate of 3D printing in the photo industry. I think it’s vital with the vintage camera and accessory world. Unfortunately, lots of camera manufacturers don’t want to support that part of their history anymore. The only one that truly does is Leica, and they should be commended for that. Canon, Zeiss, Nikon, Pentax, and others have been around for many years. If you took a Canon F1 to be repaired, Canon wouldn’t do it. Instead, you’d need to go to a vintage specialist. This, in my opinion, is backward. 

If I’m to draw another parallel, it would be to the watch world. Many watch manufacturers will repair very old products. They’ve kept the blueprints, parts, etc. And today, 3D printing those parts is easier than ever. I know repair shops that have considered doing it themselves. So, I don’t understand why a camera manufacturer can’t do it and take advantage of a new market opportunity. There’s a clear demand for these vintage items. Why not support it?

This is a big problem with things becoming obsolete after some time. Camera manufacturers discontinue products and don’t want to spend time repairing a lot of them. But cameras are different than other electronics industries. With cameras, parts and pieces can all be used with one another. A vintage lens can be adapted to a modern camera. A vintage camera can deliver a look that a modern one can’t. And no matter what, it will still continue to shoot images that can be edited and observed today. That’s much different than most other pieces of tech. 

  • Computers can’t be used after a long time because way too much breaks. Also, there are way too many parts. However, those parts can be changed around or replaced.
  • Televisions can’t be used after a while unless they’ve been well maintained. 
  • Certain electronics, like air conditioners, don’t make sense to replace. Some of them actually just use more electricity and aren’t so great for the environment.

But a camera isn’t one of these things. I’ve applauded ideas that have come up over time. For example, I’m a huge fan of how Funleader takes old Contax 35mm f2 lenses and reformats them for Leica. There’s more than just this that happens, though. Some folks take old Polaroid cameras and convert them to shoot other formats. This gives the cameras new life. Others tend to get restored. Photography is a completely different type of tech that has an artistic side to it. And those artists’ tools can be repaired for sure.

Now, before you go on, I’m not advocating that everything be repaired and refurbished to exactly the way it was. I understand that some things just don’t make sense. For example, Leica can’t get the CCD for the M9 anymore, so they put a brand new one in there. And if the motherboard on a Canon 5D Mk II fails, I’d expect to need to pay for some revamps to update in. But some things just make more sense to repair. For example, lenses are mostly just glass, plastic, metal, motors, and maybe a chipset inside: parts that can be replaced and redone pretty easily. And there isn’t much of an excuse to not want to support those products.

3D Printing Cameras canon leica nikon repair zeiss
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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