14 DAY TRIAL // Photo and video cameras are all well and good, but they can look pretty out of place next to your particular type of outfit if you have unique tastes. Also, some people just want all their gear customized.
Well aware of all this, Panasonic chose to provide some new customization options for its Lumix series of photo cameras. Options made possible by something you might have heard about by now: 3D printing technology.
If approached well, and if the one doing the printing knows how to post-process items (polish them, clean them, bathe them in solvent, paint them if needed), 3D printing can do anything.
In this instance, 3D printing technology will allow you to choose what your camera should look and feel like.
The Panasonic Lumix personalized covers
Lumix is one of the best-known trademarks owned by Panasonic. It's mostly applied to cameras aimed at hobbyists. You know, people who don't make a living off photos but aren't totally ignorant of the various non-standard capabilities that a photo and video capture device may possess.
Case in point, the corporation has introduced three 3D printed covers that can be installed on the Lumix camera.
Developed in collaboration with WertelOberfell and Materialise, the covers are supposed to evoke trends in different points of design history.
You can probably guess what they're about just from the names: Art Nouveau, Digitalism and Modernism.
The first looks oddly like copper wires and connections. The second resembles the mesh of speakers / cassette tape players. The third is, oddly enough, the most unassuming of the three, with a black patterned coating that only vaguely resembles tires treads / fish spines if you squint really hard.
How they were made and introduced
Panasonic didn't actually make these things. Indeed, we don't know of any plans on its part to become a 3D printer / 3D printing service provider, at least for now. Instead, they used Materialise printers to create the cases, while WertelOberfell ultimately invented the patterns, as we said before.
The introduction happened at the Photokina Fair in Germany, last week. Panasonic may or may not add new case options soon, to the Lumix and maybe other cameras and camcorders as well.
Needless to say, neither of the three aesthetic embellishment options has any bearing whatsoever on the quality of the photos taken with the cameras, or the speed, or any other performance parameter for that matter.