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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://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!
...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
Otherwise, it's a swell idea.
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
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."
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.
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.
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.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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.
The RIAA has not granted you a license to use your CD in this manner. Why do you hate America??