This amazing Lego camera shoots real film

If you want to build your own 35mm film camera using Lego bricks, the Lego ZH1 Camera is just what you (we all) wanted

I was planning to treat myself and my son to one of those cool high-end Polaroids for Christmas but, after seeing the ZH1, I can’t think of buying anything else. This retro-looking glory is not made by Leica, Nikon, Minolta or Ricoh. It’s a camera exclusively made out of pieces of Lego. It’s built from the blocks of the most famous toy maker in the world, all the way down to its lens: A Lego magnifying glass. 

In fact, the Lego ZH1 camera designer only got the idea to make it when he came across the little plastic loupe, a part that was only manufactured by the Danish toy company from 1998 to 2013. It would be perfect to design a working 35-mm film camera exclusively using Lego pieces, he thought. “I didn’t have any Lego, so I bought a few sets to begin my prototype,” Zung Hoang tells me over email. He wanted it to have a general retro look, all the way down to the logo, which was inspired by Lego’s 1934 brand. But, above all, he wanted it to be fully functional. “I initially tried using metallic parts to make it more realistic, but they easily tore off. My focus was on functionality—if a feature didn’t add any useful function, I wouldn’t include it just for aesthetics,” he describes.