ReFrame: An Open Source ePaper Camera for Deliberate Photography

ReFrame – The EPaper Camera

ReFrame: An Open Source ePaper Camera for Deliberate Photography

I built reFrame, an experimental camera using a color ePaper display to capture one photo at a time. Each image takes 15 seconds to appear, creating a deliberate experience similar to a digital Polaroid. The device uses off-the-shelf components like a Raspberry Pi Zero and is fully open source, allowing anyone to build their own. Photos remain on the screen even when powered off, turning the camera into a permanent desk frame until the next shot is taken.

The only way to clear the screen is to take a new photo.
  1. ChuckMcM

    Its a great idea, I think they should read the papers on dithering (I've got a color e-paper display and you can get a lot less noise than that by better dithering). The interesting thing is that back in the film days you took your 12 pictures and sent them off to the lab, and two or three days later you found out if any of them were great. This gives some of that "wait for it" kind of feel back to the photography. And at least for me, I think longer about taking a shot if I won't know instantly if its good or not :-)

  2. hankbond

    Very cute idea. I would expect that with a 15 second develop time and no live display preview some kind of optical viewfinder would be very helpful. I love seeing weird cameras.

  3. anonymous344

    that 3d print seems to be under-extruded.

    I always wonder how can so many 3d print be so low quality. My 6+ year old ender5 will print so nice quality

  4. num42

    Great work! About two hours ago, I was listening to "Générique" by Miles Davis (jazz) with a noisy, animated gradient background. The whole experience felt incredibly immersive. Now, this camera can bring that beautiful noise texture into photos with a single click. Add some clever motion graphics and transform those photos into illustrative noisy textured gradients, it could become an amazing music visualizer for jazz lovers. I don't know why, but I'm really obsessed with noisy textures.

    Générique by Miles Davis

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q73OSYyq5E0

    Immersive noisy background:

    https://monopo.vn/

    (I'm not affiliated with the site in any way. I just came across it on the Awwwards website: https://www.awwwards.com/inspiration/monopo-saigon-hypnotic-...)

  5. singpolyma3

    I don't fully understand the obsession with making less-capable devices and talking about them as though being less capable is a feature by itself.

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2026-07-29