Ever wanted a hand-painted Gundam-themed film camera? Well, now’s your chance. Taiwan-based camera-customizing guru, David C W, has produced 58 units so far, all based on the RX-78-2 Gundam suit’s iconic white, red, blue and orange color scheme.
If you’re not familiar with Gundam, it’s a huge Japanese franchise that kicked off in 1979 with the anime feature-length film Mobile Suit Gundam. This spawned a huge merchandising machine that consistently tops toy sales in Asia today.
What makes these custom cameras so special is that they’re lovingly hand-customized using spray paints and Gundam-themed decals. Each camera starts its life as an IUTD Studios TBC (To Be Continued) 35mm Reusable Film Camera, which retails for $114 / £84 / AU$158.
This pocketable little camera is built around a 28mm f/8 lens, has a 1/120 sec shutter speed and a built-in flash. Originally the body is translucent, but part of David’s customization process is to spray the camera a bright gray as the foundation of the Gundam Suit coloring.
The original batch of 10 cameras were priced at $150 (approx £110 / $AU208), which I think is a really competitive price considering the RRP of the original camera.
Initial batches featured an orange gel over the flash, which really fitted with the theme, but David has since removed the gel, citing that it "noticeably reduced the flash power” as the reason.
So there you have it, Gundam fans. You can pick up a cool, custom Gundam-themed camera. Just know that the batches are extremely small, so these little cameras don’t hang around for long. You can see David's other custom cameras by visiting the Little Road Camera eBay shop.
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