Slashdot Mirror
Macro Lens from a Pringles Can
isharq writes "In a cool little feat of extremely low-tech hardware hacking, Photocritic has created a macro lens out of a Pringles can. According to the article: "with less than £1 worth of equipment, a little bit of sweat and tears, you can build yourself a surprisingly good macro lens". The results are astonishing."
And the chips aren't half-bad either.
Don't piss in my ear and tell me its raining!
Next, you are going to tell me that you can make some sort of 802.11 antenna with a pringles can.
And whats with this "do it yourself" building projects? My fingers are too greasy and fat to perform such feats.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
Maybe they should have taken the money they saved on their macro lens and upgraded their server/connection.
Their server seems to have been reduced to rubble. Anyone got a mirror?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
He built an extension tube from a Pringles can and stuck a Canon lens on the front. This is not "building a lens".
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
What he really built was an extension tube to allow an ordinary
lens to focus closer.
http://mirrordot.org/stories/a6cd3d2482ab26fa99636 acc4d255044/index.html
/. tech monkeys include a Mirrodot/Coral Cache link as part of the story template? It would help defray the /. effect (smoldering servers and whatnot).
Why don't the
If you can get the page to load the results are actually pretty impressive... he could have put the money he saved into a better server, but I assume he just likes to be thrifty... all I need to do to get this incredibly cheap lense now is to buy a crazily expensive camera... D'oh!
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
http://www.networkmirror.com/AodpyYLsgUIgSIiH/www. photocritic.org/2005/macro-photography-on-a-budget /index.html
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
http://www.photocritic.org.nyud.net:8090/2005/macr o-photography-on-a-budget/
And what is a "macro lens"? How does it differ from a normal lens?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Sshh.. they were just testing thier Pringles can server running on a Pringles can amplified wireless network while beating Pringles can drums.
Once you pop the fun don't stop, oh wait...
Clicky
"If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door." - Paul Beatty
...was probably constructed of a Pringles can, too.
The Chronic *WHAT* les of Narnia!
...or you will end up looking like that biggest nerd on the planet.
It is also great for viewing microscopic flakes of potato chip residue. Paper towel rolls, in all their inadequacy, are known to be suffering from lenses envy.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Robert Cringely did just that; see the following link:
. html
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020207
A mirror? You mean to reflect the sun through the macro lense to toast the ant in the molasses?
But this is the first /. I've read that is totally, wrong. Sure you can make a cool macro lens out of a Pringles can for less than $1 but you forgot the important part you need a lens slash full normal 35mm camera already to pull this off.
Totally misleading summary. Mod me down if you want, I'm not trying to flame but seriously this is just hitting a low for /.
Aw Frell this
Otherwise, it's a swell idea.
And a pox on the editor that approved this trash. Sure, it's neat that you can use a Pringles can as a lens mount. I've used them as coil winding cores, waveguides, insect traps, drums, cookie cutters, and even food storage containers before. Doesn't make it news!
Of course, if I wrote up the cookie-cutter application as "Pringles can provides limitless food supply", it'd probably make the front page.
Does it work with any Pringles taste? Build a color filter lens for exceptional sunsets with the paprika flavour.
Million Dollar Screenshot
However it is a bit frustrating to see all these post lately 'build $$$ device at peanut cost' which then usually involve having all kinds of stuff in advance, e.g. "cannibalising a few of the lens- and body covers that most of us have laying around."
Slashdot, where everyone is so american that no one has any idea what Freedom of Speech is, and how it doesn't apply to private websites you read in your underwear and never pay for.
...when I show you how to construct: ... from a Pringles can.
- A working fusion reactor
- A 3" mortar
- A simple teleportation device
AND
- A cat
So, I guess we won't be using thep pringle-can macro lens to look at the server hosting the pringle-can macro lens site, unless we want to look at a charred, burned out hulk that used to be computer chassis...
Here is a pringle can antenna.
This is a pringle can pinhole camera.
Another pringles project, a pencil holder.
A bunch more uses for pringle cans are available here.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
/p I guess DIY macro lenses are the next Google...
Before mine went with the whole topic it got mod'd down to "0" for being "offtopic"... I'm new here, should I have ignored the fact that they had coppied and pasted from the "Old Stories" section... or should they re-name it to "old... and future topics"
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
http://www.photocritic.org.nyud.net:8090/2005/macr o-photography-on-a-budget/
"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."
Next, someone's gonna discover that these cans make convenient containers for chips.
Can I use it on my $1000 Sony camera that doesn't have macro mode?
really 867993
Karma schkarma
The pringles can was a reflector being used with a yagi in that design, though I'm thinking it might be possible to make a periodic array out of pringles can snippings
Macro Lens from a Pringles can, BAH! I created an interstellar ram drive with one, yea, that's what I did!!!!!
The gun is good - Zardoz
Just think of what the Professor could have done with these cans!
The primary difficulty in macro photography is getting enough depth-of-field (DOF), which is totally dependent on the film area size. Although this is a gross simplification, in general, the smaller the film area the more DOF you get. This is where tiny digital sensors shine. If you are serious about Macro, forget about 35mm or larger film formats. And I might even forget about full-frame dSLRs too and instead choose the APS-sized sensor.
_ gallery/2005/11/29/gallery.boxiing/content.11.html
And this is coming from someone who shoots 4x5 large-format for most of my photography. Combine a 4x5" negative scanned at a modest 2400dpi gets you over 100 megapixels. However any large-format shooter knows that controlling DOF is much more difficult because of the large film area. In fact this is why our cameras have movements. Instead of fixing the lens completing parallel with the film, we can move it around in order to change the plane of focus. For a nice example, check out this image in which the plane of focus extends from the guys knuckle to his eyes:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo
Of course you can mimic the effect in Photoshop, but this requires everything to be sharp to start with and sometimes this just isn't possible for the given subject distance and film area size.
What this guy built is an extension ring, not a macro lens. He used an existing lens, he chose non-macro lens, a macro lens would provide more precise focusing and flat focal plane but otherwise would work the same.
What he built is called extension ring, it fits between the camera and the lens and allows extremely close focusing of any lens. Extension rings go for $20-$40, sometimes you can find them used for less, or you can by a set of 3 for around $100. Factory-made rings usually preserve automatic functions of the lens, at least aperture control, sometimes even autofocus. They are usually much shorter than the pringles can, anywhere from 9mm to 45mm (and you can stack them).
So this little contraption does save you some bucks, just not as much as you might have hoped if you read the title and priced a macro lens.
I use velcro to temporarily attach a $1.99 jeweler's loupe to the front of my point and shoot digicamera. Cost is similar to a box of Pringles, image quality is fine for web pics. By buying the $3.99 set of 5 loupes, I get a variety of magnification levels, down to a 2mm object taking up the full frame.
Who has the deck?
Oh, I'm afraid there's more than a few jokers missing out of this pack.
May the Maths Be with you!
could Pringles Cans be the new Nanotubes?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
A very nice way to do macro photography is to place that 50 mm (or similar) lens reversed in front of your lens. You can buy a reversing ring for the purpose. It is easy to do if you only have threads for the reversing ring on your camera (many point and shoot digital don't). Just zoom in (to minimize vignetting) and stop down the lens you are mounting the (wide open) normal lens on.
If you are serious about doing macro photography but don't have to budget to buy a macro lens for your SLR, best would be to use a lesn reversing ring to put the lens backwards on the camera. That way you can use your regular lens as a very good macro lens. Focusable, zoomable, what ever... won't even cost you much more then a box of pringles and no risk of geasing up your SLR.
"Pringles cans. Is there anything they can't do?"
Just poke a hole in a body cover cap or lens cap, instant pinhole camera with nearly or totally infinite DOF.
Adding an extension tube changes the minimum focus distance but doesn't change the focal length. Adding a teleconverter, on the other hand, changes the focal length but doesn't change the minimum focus distance. (Unfortunately, Canon and perhaps others call their teleconverters "extenders", which some people confuse with "extension tubes", although that's as wrong as confusing KDE with X.) Either way can increase the effective magnification factor of the stack, but the mechanisms are completely different (orthogonal, even).
Since the f-stop is related to the focal length and aperture, using an extension tube on a 50mm lens at f/16 will give you a stack that is still f/16. Using a 2x teleconverter, on the other hand, will double the focal length, giving you a stack that is two stops slower, i.e. f/32.
And for those of you who don't know what a "stop" is, stopping down (darker) one stop halves the amount of light that makes it through the lens per unit time. This is related to the aperture (opening) of the lens and to the square of the focal length, so multiplying the focal length by the square root of two (approximated as "1.4") will reduce exposure by one full stop. (Teleconverters commonly come in 1.4x and 2x, which reduce your f-stop by 1 and 2 stops, respectively.)
A foot away is just tremendous distance for a modern mid-priced digital camera. I have a Minolta-Konica Dimage Z5 whose "super macro" mode, while somewhat depth-of-field challenged, can take pictures within a centimeter of the lens. That's on a camera with an image-stabilized 12x optical zoom, too, so it's not like it's the intended strong point of the model. IIRC there's a slightly more recent Canon, also with a longer-than-normal optical zoom, that can take snaps of stuff that's essentially touching the face of the lens.
That's on your $500-USD tier of cameras. Granted, the DOF is not perfect, and I'm sure it's less than a flat field, but the newest midlevel consumer digicams are lots better than a reflective Pringles can...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Unless it's a Nikon, then it's a Micro.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Has Beatles-Beatles branched out into Pringles production now?
He he he... you said 'asses' too.
Macro Lens, Directional Antenna (http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/Pringles Cantenna), Explode the top off with Liquid Nitrogen (http://www.physik.uni-augsburg.de/~ubws/nitrogen. html) and some prefer to use it in the event they need to use the restroom and facilities are not available (http://www.emericaskate.com/more/parisbarca/). I tell ya, I'd like to know what that can with the delicious potato chips CAN'T do.
Any macro photogapher should know about this. its the oldest trick in the book of macro photography. add distance between the recording media(film/ccd) and lens, you can focus closer. People have suggested stuff like the inside of toilet paper roll for this.
Merely picking a smaller sensor will not help you all that much with DOF for macro photography--it's still too small. And tilt movements also don't help that much.
The way you get large DOF with digital is by combining several different shots with different focus.
Far better to take a dump in the Pringles can and then throw about 20 pringles back in on top of it.
Go on, reach inside for the tasty crunchy things...
You can play something like pass the parcel, only with one user not getting a tasty crunchy thing. All players will feel quite ill however, if they've been eating the pringles.
"It's been 4 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment"
Err, I haven't posted today. wtf?
Hussein's lawyers claim they were to be used to create macro lenses but apparently the grand jury feels his story just wouldn't wash.
More to come...
He he he... you said "asses" too.
About the hard drive cooler that would only cost 10 cents. Unlinked cause I don't have a photographic memory regarding HTML formatting.
/ 23/1338212&tid=222&tid=198&tid=137
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04
Actually lenses that give you greater than 1:1 magnification are macro lenses. Up to and incluning 1:1 is micro. Nikon got their naming straight, most of the other vendors misuse the macro term though.
You've been hax0red!
The RIAA has not granted you a license to use your CD in this manner. Why do you hate America??
macro lenses...
Wi-Fi antennas...
Is there anything pringles cans can't do?
You can even store pringles in them!
BULLSHIT moderator pushing the story with comment!
/*looks once
Yeah this Pringles(TM) project is great! Excellent pictures.
/*looks twice
There are many $1 project-things you can do with a Pringles(TM) can......strapped to a US $1,000 lens, that a stranger discarded in a dumpster in favor of a disposable 3 mega-pixel digital camera.
/*looks thrice
I hope Frito-Lay doesn't claim prior art.
/*looks a fourth time
This is a great idea, and perhaps it has some porn value for effeminate Lesbians. A++ Mod-up! Will do business with again!
/*smacked by a Grue named ** Beatles Beatles to wit "Ammulette of Slashdot belongs to me now! HAR HAR HAR!"
All this computer hacking is making me thirsty. I think I'll order a TAB.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
He he he... you said 'asses" too.
I did this eighteen years ago, using toilet paper tubing and caulk. Mine actually slid back and forth for some focal-length variation; it had originally been a telephoto lens built out of a cannibalized binocular objective. It was easier to handle then your assembly, as it was built for a manual-focus Minolta MD and had the F-stop ring... didn't need the extra step to set aperture.
I suggest that it would probably be better to build the rear mount for a modern SLR bayonet, but the front mount for an older manual-focus lens, to eliminate that step.
Also the can can be used as a waveguide which extends the WiFi signal range quite spectacularly.
I assume this whole project was for him to be able to find his little dick.
He used a pringles can as an extension tube. I did the same with a cardboard tube back in the 70's, I was 13 at the time. Not rocket science. Official: ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING can make it to slashdot.
Making your own Macro-tubing - how can that be news? Kinda old trick, very old. Make it a homebuilt IR->light converter or something else a little more advanced. That would be interesting!
Ah, another American-bashing brought to you by Slashot.org.
Pringles are not host wafers.
Just add this and you're all set.
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
He he he... you said "asses' too.
2: Using a dremel tool grind out the sheet steel bottom. Leave metal swarf and dust inside tube.
3: Glom this mess onto your camera and lens.
4: Wonder why your camera develops problems later.
Seriously, read the article. The complete carelessness is horrible. This article is like a sick joke on people who don't know or think about the implications of getting salt and metal dust into their camera.
You win an invisible chocolate cookie if you can name the fellow who said "maybe i can just shit in a pringle can"
Even a centrifuge to enrich uranium!
Get your Unix fortune now!
With a normal tele-zoom lens 100-300mm + a reversed 50mm lens you can achieve similar results, you dont even need a tube.
private websites you read in your underwear
I'm naked, you insensitive clod!
When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl
Wow! Now I can make a macro amplified Wireless antenna :-)
...officially call the Pringles can the geek Duct Tape?
This was on Boing Boing a solid 4 days ago.
./ readers who want slightly less nerd in their news.
Incidentally, that site is strongly recommended for
Read Pynchon.
I saw this and went down to the camera store to get a lens and body cap to mount it, and the owner, showed me something else that works better. I use a pentax k mount so there are a lot of old teleconverters and only for about 20 bucks. All you have to do is tap the lens elements on the edge to unscrew them. Then you have a very sturdy mount and about 25mm of extension.
Technically, I've got no argument with you. However, "macro" has been understood to be "extreme close up" and there isn't a good and easily understood substitute term that easily fits on a selector switch, so it's yet another technical term lost to common english. Yes, a native macro on my camera with its 4-5mm sensor would be fantastic, but I'd settle for a finished picture that was similar in magnification and resolution to a true macro 35mm without having to use aux lenses.
> This is a nice contraption, kudos to the guy.
He didn't even save the lid for white balance...
.. and it also included some interesting, basic, Tesla and flyback stuff; Nice!
Sure, could get a bunch of cans and duct tape them together in a miles-long waveguide. We could make waveguides in a similar fashion using 55 gallon drums for UHF range, and tanker truck trailers for VHF.
The chinese finger trap I just glued to my camera-phone was for naught?
You can get a surprisingly nice "macro" photo by just hand-holding the lens an inch or so in front of the camera body. If you have reasonably fast film, the picture is great and you can focus way up close. Use the SLR viewfinder for depth of focus and focus. Surprisingly, you don't have to go to great lengths to block light around the sides (barring direct sunlight of course). I've done this with a Pentax ME and 50mm lens held about 1-2cm in front of body.
Dude's just having a little fun. And it did the job well enough, judging by the photos. Your "What's wrong with this guy" demeanor is kinda throwing me off. Don't you understand the appeal of being an experimental cheap bastard?
I realize that to many people this is not a useful tool. However as a photography major this is actually useful. Yes you need to have a camera. Yes you need to have some extra parts. If you would RTFA you might deduce that you would NOT ruin your camera with chip bits, if you did something as simple as WIPE OUT THE TUBE. While many people here are correct that he did not build an actual lens, he did make something useful. It is little bits of information that should be embraced by this community, not ridiculed!
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Use only one can for all four.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
...how'd they take the close up photos of them making the lens?
J.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.