$11 Super Wide Angle Digital Camera

Add a 160 degree wide angle lens to your existing digital camera for $11. This was based on ideas from the following webpage: http://aggregate.org/DIT/peepfish/

Step 1: Go to your favorite hardware store, and buy a wide angle door viewer.

You should be able to find one of these at any hardware store. I got mine at Home Depot for about $11. The key attributes that you're looking for is the largest possible "eye hole". There are a bunch of these door viewers that have very small openings, and they won't produce a very good image. Get the one I'm showing here, and it will work great. The opening is just about the size of the lens on my old Canon S230.

Comments

[Technomage]

I tried this over the weekend. It works great. I used the idea on my 300D SLR.
As there was a lot of bright lights I got a ton of flaring. Check out some of the pictures below.

There are good SLR instructions here. Short version below:

I had drilled a hole in a 55mm lens cap ($4.95)
I used the same peephole from homedepot and hot glued it to the lens cap. ($7.50 and $1)
I attached the lenscap to my 28-90 Sigma lens (it has macro)
Pictures where best around 50-70 mm not in macro mode and with manual focus
Done.

This was my first instructable project!

[RUMCYCO]

Nice work mate ;)

[Ninzerbean]

I went to your link - these speak to me also! They are really cool - use them for the art work on CD's - you can buy round labels for them, glossy is best. Wonderful!

[poetapex]

Hey good job.

[PetervG]

Okay so how do I do this...

[Ghost Wolf]

LAME! Check out mine! It's bigger than yours lol

[maito]

ZAS! en toda la boca

http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/diy-fish-eye-lense-19-11-2009/

[Ghost Wolf]

Translation: ZAP! whole mouth

[Phoghat]

In the OLD days, we would find an extra lens cap and cut a hole in the center big enough to hold the door viewer. Just snap it on and you're good to go.

[jenniec]

it goes on your stock lens - i have the canon Xti - and it works awesome.
way less of a risk ahah just buy this

[PetervG]

The door viewer wont fit on a DSLR..

[linuxrules]

Hey bud, take a look at this image: http://duolian.smugmug.com/Other/Faux-Fisheye/gear/14344129_JjoU6-O.jpg

[Pepealej]

Zoom in

[buffysissy1]

I also tried this with a point and shoot but epoxied another lens on top, a lens I got out of a cheap "panoramic camera", just epoxied the edges and got a nice effect. Will post pix soon.

[buffysissy1]

The large door viewer seems the way to go with these projects.

[mg0930mg]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB7rnAY55UM

Thanks!

[Funguystuff]

thanks for this instructable man, i knnew that saving this door "eye" would help me someday, and now i did. you should add to the key words of this intstructable "skate" because this is how sk8 videos are shot and that was what i was looking for.
Gr8 Instructable!

[yerfdog123]

my camera has a square shaped around the lens, will this still work?

[mista.v]

You know, if you measure out the DoF properly, you won't need to crop this bit out.

[sjoobbani]

you should use some kinda tube, and maybe some tape, without using the sticky side on your cam. to make it removable.

[tommyskate]

iv got this yes video camera its a mini camera wat do i no and i want one for my skating

[Scottishsamurai_545]

I found your project a couple weeks ago, linking off a DIY kaleidoscope lens project. Most of the time I work with a full-size camera, and had never really thought of using a door viewer with the lens on a small camera. I gave your project a try with a cheap point & shoot I have, and the results were impressive. I then figured out a way of using a piece of plumbing hardware to adapt the viewer to my bridge camera, which doesn't do too bad of a job of making fish-eye pictures. Good work!

[say88got]

hey do any of u now how to make one wit out a peephole

[oldbastardjoe]

i made one but i sawwed off some excess so i wouldnt have to zoom as much. if you do the same make sure no glass gets cut as o my first attempt i cut the eye glass and it doesnt work.

[bowmaster]

If you could find a 180 degree door viewer you would have a fish eye lens

[Trebawa]

At Home Depot they have 200° viers right next to the 160° ones. I got one and will post pictures soon.

[Runeshai]

That's pretty sweet. Is there a way you could make them the regular rectangle photo shape, instead of the circle, or would that be too hard to do in-camera with this rig?

[inquisitive]

Lovely pictures! Your cats are so cute! The coloring on one looks like split bangs and the other one seems to have an eye patch-this will be fun to play with. Thanks!

[X_D_3_M_1]

kool kat. hes so cute

[dimockn]

Used Nero PhotoSnap to correct the distortion as shown. Takes away some of the charm ? :)

[locofocos]

Could you tell me how to do that? I know how to do the thing where you take a picture of a flat surface at an angle, the use the proportion/crop function and it looks straight, but how would you do that with this?

[JamesRPatrick]

N-Game!

[eyballer9]

its a wide angle or a fish eye lense you can get them for all kinds of cameras it makes the shot wider

[locofocos]

I know that, but can you use Photoshop to take the round, wide-angle pictures and turn them into normal square ones (like shown above)?

[Sidney Floyd]

definitley the first looks so much cooler whats the point of a wide angle lenseif theres no hokey ring of distortion?

[slacy]

The reason this doesn't look as interesting as you might expect is that all the objects in frame are too far from the camera. Take a skew-angle close-up picture and correct that. I think you'll get a much better feel for how weird things get. BTW, if the purpose of PhotoSnap is to stitch panoramas, then you'd expect it to look "normal" wouldn't you?

[zwild1]

If you remove the barrel on the fisheye, (hacksaw) you no longer have to worry about the "tunnel vision"

[iman]

i like your cat lol

[slacy]

Thanks! She's word renouned now! (BTW, my gallery actually has pictures of 2 different cats. Can you tell them apart?)

[Bob7k]

hahaa, cats are awesome! i have 2 cats, hamsters and a pair of rats, im a pet freak, but then again, care is split up over 6 people, but only i care for the hamsters and rats

[MDude]

I like the look of the picture with the metal still there, it makes it look like it was taken through a port hole.

[ian$½]

it's pretty distorted.. is that the camera or the peephole? so you have any ideas for a bigger lens.. like a 52mm diagonal? still cool

[sixcrows]

Can anybody tell me where I can find one of these door viewers. The only ones I've found (at Home Depot and Lowe's) are the ones with the very slender opening. Thanks.

[baggers]

I've written up some instructions for using this technique on a camcorder here: http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Video-Tricks-Build-a-Cheap-Wide-Angle-Adapter.htm

[heyster]

I have a sony cybershot dsc-p8. A camera about 3 years old but takes great pictures. I will certainly try this instuctable.

[anntda]

Old or new idea, it's new to me & I'm anxious to try it out. I, too, have a Powershot. Did you need to do anything differently on this type of camera? Thanks for sharing!

[amosslee]

I'm trying to build a physics demonstration device that has a fisheye lens in a globe (see photo or http://teacherresourceexchange.org/science/fisheye-lens-in-globe/). This hack works fine, but I need higher resolution. I'm looking at a miniature fisheye lens from sunex.com (mod dsl215), and trying to figure out how to get it attached to a camera. I opened up my web cam, but it doesn't have the right threading or mounting screws. I'm looking around at 1/3" CCD/CMOS cameras/chips, but companies don't seem to give specs on the threading of their lenses.

Anyone have any tips on how to match a "real" fisheye lens with a camera? The lens I'm looking at is rated as M12x0.5 threads, with two mounts available that have two 2.0 mm mounting holes 22 mm apart.

Ideally, I would attach the lens to a wireless camera, so when it is mounted inside the globe it can spin freely.

[slacy]

I looked at your sample picture, and I don't understand why the sample image is so blurry -- did you remove the original lens optics? You'll need to keep the original optics in and just put the lens in front. For threaded adapters, take a look at the guy above who used a PVC fitting. That looks like it works really well, and would be pretty easy to do, I think. If you don't care about the webcam, just jam a bunch of silicone sealant or something similar to hold the lens in place. Careful with the optics though!

[philbert]

I tried this with my camera... I shoot alot of video and tried a clip on wide angle and it just wasnt wide enough.... I use a mustek 3 in 1 dv5500 and a pop bottle top works great over the lens. I used a drill and just screwed in the doorviewer I shoot alot of skateboarding footage.. I LOVE the wide angle lens look.....but I dont have the money nor have the experience to operate a canon XL1 or anything of that nature, so I tried this and it works GREAT

[slacy]

Awesome! You should upload some of your videos to Google Video and post links here so we can see them!

[Cristo]

This is a great idea! Any suggestions on how to create a mount for a Powershot A530 or similar sized camera? It would be great to be able to 'pop' it on and off quickly when needed.

[stevecooley]

Wow, I have that exact same honeysuckle in my back.. yard... or whatever my townhouse has of a yard. You in the san jose area? My town's got that stuff _everywhere_.

[RuTemple]

That photo is of Jasmine, which grows everywhere and smells wonderful. Guess I'd better hop off to the hardware store and take a pic of some honeysuckle, then! Great idea for a lens.

[tekisui]

I've been using a set up like this for a few months now, inspired by the same website. I used the top from a medicine bottle to fix the peep hole to my Sony's lens. Works pretty well for about 10 bucks total.

[parasymboligist]

how big around is your cybershot lens? i have a dsc-p71, and i'd LOVE to try this. thanks.

[sdamy]

Very goog idea! I've post in italian language:

http://www.sdamy.com/obiettivo-grandangolare-per-macchina-fotografica-digitale-con-pochi-euro-76.html

[fishcatcher]

--does this work for electric cameras? +also can u use this on my video gamera?

[leevonk]

as long as your camera accepts light from the outside world through some sort of hole,... yeah.

[westfw]

I remember seeing this idea in Popular Photography about 30 years ago; they had you mount the viewer in a lense cap for easy application/removal. That doesn't mean it's not good INSTRUCTABLE material now; I'm particularly impressed with how well this interfaces to todays digital cameras. (30 years ago; no digital cameras, and an entire multi-user mainframe computer would probably has less memory than people use for a single picture today. Sigh; I fell old.)

[trebuchet03]

Didn't someone already post how to add a fish eye lens using a peep hole lens?? Maybe it was hackaday :P This also works (and is a very useful) on webcams - especially if you use it for security purposed ;)

[slacy]

I couldn't find one describing this, so I figured I'd do it... (yeah, I know its old news).

[trebuchet03]

Yep... it was hackaday :P No worries though - its still quite useful ;)

http://www.hackaday.com/entry/1234000793073646/