Macro Atachment for pocket digital camera

An easy way to make a macro (and other) attachment for your camera if it has an extending lens barrel.

Step 1: Gather your materials

you'll need a camera, xacto knife, selection of bottle caps and a selection of lenses

Comments

[qwertyboy]

I made one out an lens from an old camera and lined it with felt for a snug fit. I works great.

[qwertyboy]

The pictures didn't work in IE, so here they are:

[agis68]

 What type of lens or lenses did you use?

[Tool Using Animal]

I used part of an eyepiece to a microscope, but any convex lens can be used.

[mysterious ninja of fire]

I am makign an instructable on how to make one for your eye toy for if you use it as a webcam then ill make one on hwo to make ur eyetoy a webcam lol

[I3uckwheat]

please post

[rownhunt]

what can I use for macro lens for this

[fluzwup]

I'll second that; I have a $10 mini camera just like that, though marked with a different brand. I suspect a pair of tubes that would slide inside each other, plus an appropriate magnifying lens, would do the trick.

[fluzwup]

Using a 3x mafnifying glass and my $10 fixed focus camera, laid out like this gave me good results. Image is of a HDD controller circuit board, without magnifying glass (top) and with magnifying glass (bottom)

[Plasmana]

That looks very good for your first try!

[Plasmana]

here is an close-up of the mother board...

[ProfMuggs]

Where did you get your lenses?

[n0ukf]

I found that a jewler's loupe fits nicely over the lens on my Kodak C330 and it's easily held on and steady with 2 fingers. And I can still use the zoom feature. In fact, I have to zoom in a little to get rid of the black corner fuzz (meaning the lens and holder aren't quite close enough for field of view).

[Tool Using Animal]

They're disassembled microscope objectives.

[higgrobot]

Where did you get the microscopes?

[vladdydaddy]

Good idea. In the past I made something similar. Make a tube out of cardboard. Cut notches at the rim of the tube and fold them over the macro lens and tape everything in place. Do not tape anything to the camera itself ; ) A simpler method is just to hold a magnifying lens in front of the camera by hand and snap a close-up - that works fine too!

[whiteoakart]

I have a similar set up made with an old Olympus Stylus lens. Because I had a problem with lighting, I made a masonite bracket which screws into the tripod mount. To this I clip on a bright white gooseneck LED booklight. That works pretty well. here is a shot of the system.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteoakart/198954708/in/set-72157594217393625/

[stonehenge360]

sweet im always trying to zoom in more i'll def. try this

[Joe93]

looks good i might try it

[Tool Using Animal]

Looks good, I'm glad you found it useful.

[Tool Using Animal]

The camera has two different focus settings, continuous and focus when shutter is depressed, I use the second one, try to get the image as focused as possible by positioning the camera, depress the shutter for final focusing and take the pic. Also setting the camera for centerzone focusing and metering helps. As for special setting I usually choose "Aperture priority" and set the F number as high as possible because the depth of focus is very small, I also try to avoid flash by shooting in full sun, or stick a mailing label over the flash to diffuse it. I also shoot alot, ten pics of the same subject and throw away the nine out of focus. Oh and a calibration tip for the perfectionists, take shots of graph paper at various zooms, this will let you judge how much distortion different lenses give you.

[jquinby]

Excellent advice, thanks! I've posted some test shots in a flickr album here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69047046@N00/sets/72157594235489596/

Now if only the sun would come back out...

[NinJA999]

Hmmm... I'll have to try it. You have an interesting workbench...I would never use my laptop cover!

[ElectricJ]

wuss

[jquinby]

Pretty slick. I grabbed the eyepiece from my daughter's telescope and have taken a few test shots with it. I've also got a Kodak - how do you deal with the camera trying to auto-focus constantly? Any special settings for lighting, shutter speed, etc?