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."

Comments

Astonishingly.. lame

[Ancient_Hacker]

So all you need is:

• A camera.
  • A SLR.
  • That you don't mind getting wrecked.
  • Due to getting Pringle-bits in the mechanical bits.
  • Or due to getting Pringle-salt in the mechanical bits.
  • With a removable lens.
  • But not a lens scheme that telemeters f-stop or focus or depth-of-field indicators or flash timer.
  • And not an old Retina-Reflex with the shutter built into the lens.
• And you can stand putting duct-tape on a piece of precision equipment.
• And you don't already have a lens with the twist-to-macro feature.
• And you don't mind wrecking the lens when it falls off the end of the tube.
• And you don't mind the idiocy of using a tube with reflective insides when optimally it should be just the opposite.

Otherwise, it's a swell idea.

Not 1£ lens

[elgatozorbas]

This is a nice contraption, kudos to the guy.

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."

Re:Lens, my foot!

[Don Negro]

You're corrent that he didn't build a lens. That misrepresetation is the editor/submitters fault. It's entirely possible neither of them knew any better.

I want to point out that any vitriol anyone needs to spew about this should be directed to the editor himself, and not confused with comments about this guy's work. He built a cool hack, turning several pieces of cheap equipment into one piece of expensive equipment in the finest tradition of geekiness.

Just because someone mischaracterised his work doesn't make his work of lesser intrinsic value. It's not what we were told it was when we clicked on the article, but it's pretty cool in and of itself. Let's not let that get lost.

Re:The first time I ever felt deceived by /.

[gstoddart]

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.

Yeah. Just like when someone points out that you can build an antenna for wireless networking with a Pringles can, it's all a big scam because you already needed to have a working computer and a wireless infrastructure, how lame. What a rip-off, you can't build the whole network with just the pringles can?

We should all feel greatly deceived when there are any pre-requisites for a DIY project. I'm still waiting to get instructions on making a supercomputer completely out of a pumpkin, but no luck so far.

Re:The results are astonishing

[Golias]

Astonishing indeed.

NEWS FLASH: Hallow tube may be used to do the job of... a hallow tube.

Next on Slashdot: Make a crude beer stein out of an ordinary measuring cup!

(Insert oblig. "hacking is way cooler than just BUYING a beer stein like the rest of the sheep!!!1! It's about the JOURNEY d00d!!" comment in response to howls of laughter over such a useless activity.)