Image: LGR on YouTube It's no secret that we're big camera nerds here at DPReview, and it probably won't surprise you that this passion doesn't just exist during work hours. Our various social media algorithms have picked up on this fact, and often show us some cool things that other creators have made.
Since it's the weekend, we thought it'd be fun to share some of the better videos we've seen with our audience.
A review of I'm Back Film
Late last year, the oddly-named I'm Back announced that it was finally ready to start shipping the Film, a. . . well, film-shaped canister that it promises will turn traditional 35mm film cameras into digital ones by slotting into the film spool and putting a Four Thirds sensor behind the shutter. The company wasn't able to provide us a review unit for the launch, but apparently, YouTuber Clint Basinger, known as LGR, had backed the Kickstarter for it and received the I'm Back Film kit in January.
While he's most famous for reviewing retro computers and games, he goes fairly in-depth on how it works. The results are. . . well, you should watch the whole video to get all the nuance, but they're frankly not good. He wasn't able to get it to fit in a wide array of film cameras, and wound up having a pretty serious issue with image quality.
While LGR's review is solid, we'd definitely still be willing to give it a try ourselves. If anyone from I'm Back is reading this, you know where to find us.
Even more details on the unorthodox cinematography for 28 Years Later
We've covered how Danny Boyle's new movie, 28 Years Later, was shot using iPhones a few times on this site, but Sony Pictures Entertainment has just released a new video on the matter that we think is very worthwhile. In it, Boyle and longtime collaborator Anthony Dod Mantle discuss using drones to help make sure the landscapes in the movie actually looked untouched, why they decided to make the movie with a smartphone and some of the increasingly complicated rigs they used to turn the iPhone into a movie camera.
It's the latest example of a trend where movie studios are releasing videos of filmmakers doing deep dives on their craft. We'd very much like to see this continue – maybe we can get one for the next Christopher Nolan movie, which will reportedly be the first feature-length blockbuster shot on IMAX film cameras.
A monster DIY battery
We've all probably wished our cameras' batteries lasted just a bit longer at some point, whether because we were planning a marathon shoot or were left fishing around for a power lead or charger by a dead battery. YouTuber Evan Monsoma apparently also felt this way, but instead of just complaining about it or buying a commercially available video battery, he decided to take the DIY approach, using mostly materials he already had on hand.
For him, this meant getting a 20V battery made for power tools to work with his Sony a6600, and building an enclosure to contain all the circuitry and mount the battery to the camera. The results are impressive: he says he got over 15 hours of video recording with a 5 Amp hour battery, compared to the mere 3 hours with the stock battery.
This should probably go without saying, but don't try this one at home. It's all good fun to watch someone who (seemingly) knows what they're doing take this on as a project, but this is a concept probably best left as a "Evan did it so you don't have to. "
Of course, we won't have caught every interesting photography-related video floating around the internet this week. If you saw something cool, feel free to share it with the class over on our forums.
. dpreview.com2025-7-20 17:00