Macro Atachment for Pocket Digital Camera

Intro: 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

STEP 2: Select a Bottle Cap That Will Almost Fit

in this case it's a prescription bottle lid from target. here I'm using the knife to trim out the inside of the bottle cap so I have a SLIGHT friction fit on the lens barrel. You want the fit tight enough so it doesn't fall off and loose enough so you don't strip gears when the barrel retracts.

STEP 3: Adding the Lens

After you get the fit right trim out a hole to fit your lens. When selecting a lens quality counts, pick a good multi element if you can, use plastic as a last resort, cannibalized binoculars are a great source. This is part of a microscope eye piece

STEP 4: Put It All Together

fit the lens in the bottle cap, slip the cap on the camera, and finally....


Oh yeah that's also a polarizing filter I added

STEP 5: Take Some Pics

before and afters

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...

[JmsDwh]

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.