There’s nothing worse than having an old camera that loses bits, pieces or components that are hard to replace. However, this photographer found a brilliant solution to fix his old kit: he simply 3D prints these parts.

Witono describes himself as “an engineer, inventor, designer, animator, adventurer, athlete, photographer, music enthusiast, lens hacker” who fixed his old Olympus OM-D E-M1 – a camera recently replaced by the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III and Olympus OM-1.

• These are the best Olympus cameras (OM system)

“Not happy with all the missing parts on my Olympus so I designed and printed them all,” he wrote on his YouTube video (below) showing how he created the spare parts to update his camera.

“Battery door cover – took me 6 iterations to get it to the perfect dimension, plus the fact that I was printing with an old 3D printer, designed to fit the tolerance.

“Eye Cup – This is a bummer. I could have printed with soft TPU (I don’t have the filament) to mimic the deformation of the rubber. Instead it’s just a cosmetic piece without deformation.Designed with a bridge without support material.

“Accessory Port Cover – My design skills have improved. I got the perfect fit on the second try!”

Photographers have been 3D printing camera and lens accessories for years (for my first professional job in 2014, we printed a replacement lens hood for a video lens I needed for an order), but now the technology is so good that parts rival OEM components.

Of course, the best 3D printers alone are not enough; although you can download specs for almost any component you might need, the best results can be achieved with the best 3D scanners (although this obviously requires you to scan the parts first, which is not a big help if you’ve lost them!).

So if you have a 3D printer, the next time you lose a head or a battery cover or a switch, check to see if the part you need can be printed at home.

Read more:

The best Olympus lenses
Best Micro Four Thirds Cameras
The best mirrorless cameras