Homemade Lens

I read www.diyphotography.net fairly regularly. It contains all things homemade or hacked for your camera, including lenses. I've ripped the lens off of a toy camera and attached it to my Canon 40D with some success. Many other photographers modify their camera similarily.

I stumbled across someone who had used the lens from a disposable camera. Many people have done this, here is one example.

So this was my project for the day. I used one canon body cap, one altoid tin for fun and one lens from a kodak disposable camera.




The intial version today had the lens extended about an inch away from the tin bottom. I could focus the image if I moved the 'lens' about three finger widths away from the subject.





So, I decided to put it back as you see it above. That extends the distance to about four finger widths.





I tweaked the color and lighting a little bit on the above eye photo. I didn't sharpen it any further.

I'm pretty pleased with my homemade lens effort with built in lens cap. I had to reglue everything because intially the altoid tin was crooked to the camera, that bugged me. Also, the tin opened up if it was on right side up. I found that it worked better if the lens opened down. It wouldn't keep shutting on itself as I tried to make a photo. Though the other down side to this set up, you have to be so close to the subject that it is difficult to use a flash. If you keep the altoid tin right side up, the lid can be used to bounce the light.

It's your call!

All of this and I only shocked myself once when I picked up the ripped apart camera - battery still connected. If you use a flash camera, please disconnect the battery immediately when you rip into yours.