Skip to main content

Meet the camera that shows you a stranger’s images instead of your own

Le myope: a similar images Raspberry Pi camera
With the instant gratification of a digital camera LCD, we’ve forgotten what photography used to be like – the inability to see what you’re shooting. Leica recently released a $6,000 digital camera without a screen that keeps you in the element of surprise until you download it to your computer. Now, there’s a new camera that not only won’t show you your own images, but Le Myope, instead, shows you someone else’s photos.

Designed by Parisian artist and engineer, Salade Tomate Oignon (or Salad Tomato Onion, in French), the camera, described as “short sighted,” reads the photo that you just took and, using an algorithm, displays a similar photo that someone else took. The photo from a stranger is pulled from Google and could be a shot of a similar item, from the same place, or some other vague interpretation of what a similar photo might be.

You can’t buy the camera, however. It is a build-it-yourself option using a programmable Raspberry Pi computer and a camera module. Oignon includes the code he used in his set of instructions to build the camera, which also needs a wireless USB adapter to work.

Instead of displaying the actual guitar, Le Myope found a similar image instead.
Instead of displaying the actual guitar, Le Myope found a similar image instead. Salade Tomate Oignon

The camera itself isn’t much – boxy and designed with the 5-megapixel camera system for Rasberry Pi. But it’s the code that finds a similar image on the web that’s worth taking a look at. An image you take is stored on the camera, then uploaded to Google Image search to find a similar image, and then downloaded and displayed in lieu of what you actually photographed.

Le Myope isn’t the first unusual camera that Oignon has designed either. The Layer Cam uses a GPS and shows photographers a photo someone else took from that same spot – essentially a tool for those who don’t want to simply take the same photo that’s been shot hundreds of times before.

The camera’s practical use is limited, and Oignon even describes it as “even more imprecise than a blurry polaroid [sic] picture, or than a filter-abused instagram [sic] shot.” But it shows that when you think you are photographing something original, somebody else has probably already taken the same photo.

Editors' Recommendations

Hillary K. Grigonis
Hillary never planned on becoming a photographer—and then she was handed a camera at her first writing job and she's been…
Fujifilm’s successor to the wildly popular X100V has just landed
fujifilm unveils x100v successor x100vi

FUJIFILM X100VI Promotional Video/ FUJIFILM

Fujifilm has finally unveiled the successor to its super-popular X100V camera.

Read more
How to download Instagram photos for free
Instagram app running on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5.

Instagram is amazing, and many of us use it as a record of our lives — uploading the best bits of our trips, adventures, and notable moments. But sometimes you can lose the original files of those moments, leaving the Instagram copy as the only available one . While you may be happy to leave it up there, it's a lot more convenient to have another version of it downloaded onto your phone or computer. While downloading directly from Instagram can be tricky, there are ways around it. Here are a few easy ways to download Instagram photos.

Read more
Astronaut captures stunning images of a snowy Grand Canyon
A snow-covered Grand Canyon seen from space.

In the final days of his six-month stint aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen took some time out of his science work to snap some striking photos of a snow-covered Grand Canyon.

The images were captured from the station in recent days as it orbited Earth at an altitude of around 250 miles.

Read more