Wide-Angle and Fish-Eye Camera Lens Adaptor

by shoemaker

48K8039

Intro: Wide-Angle and Fish-Eye Camera Lens Adaptor

How to build a lens adaptor for your camera for about $5-10. This adaptor allows you to get wide angle shots up to 200 degrees field of view and take funny fish-eye effect photos. Uses only commonly available materials. The entire process and example photos are shown in the video.


STEP 1: Parts List

A picture is worth a thousand words and a video is worth even more. All of the instructions are demonstrated in the Instructional video.

You will need:

1. A peep hole - the kind you use on your front door to see who is on the other side. Get one at the hardware store. They come with 160 degree or 200 degree field of view. The 160 is probably fine for most wide-angle work. The 200 is as wide as most people will ever need. You can actually see slightly behind the lens with this one. And, it works better for fish-eye effect. However, is may show more barrel distortion. If you can't decide, get both.

2. PVC Pipe. The smallest diameter you can find that will fit around your camera's lens barrel.

3. Craft foam. These EVA foam sheets are available at craft stores and any place that sells scrap booking supplies.

STEP 2: Build Up the Diameter of the Peep Hole Barrel

Measure and cut strips of the foam sheet. The width of the strips should be the same as the length of the peephole barrel. [Instructional video

Measure the length of the strips so that they wrap around the peep hole barrel.

Build up enough layers of foam so that the peep hole fits snuggly into the PVC pipe.

I used spray adhesive to glue the foam layers onto the peephole barrel and on to each other.

STEP 3: Prepare the PVC Pipe

Cut a piece of PVC pipe to the length of the camera lens barrel plus the length of the peep hole

Paint the PVC pipe if desired

STEP 4: Make the Camera Interface

Make a fitting for the camera lens by building up the thickness of the camera lens to fit the inside diameter of the PVC pipe.

Glue the resulting fitting inside the PVC pipe.

STEP 5: Finish

Push the built-up peep hole into the other end of the PVC pipe.

That's it.

I got best photo results when I had the camera lens zoomed in as far as possible.


43 Comments

nvranješ 12 years ago

Very nice project indeed. I made this today, but I used a 120 degree peep hole and it had a too big circle around it, I even sawed it off quite a lot, but it was still a bit big. Anyway I am pleased with the result, but I gotta get myself the 200 degree one. Here is a photo. Camera used is Coolpix L22.

sjoobbani 14 years ago

I have trouble with 2 things:
focus
& 
Lighting.

Focus: i tried on landscape, i tried autofocus, and I tried macro. what to do? still blurry, i understand the edge's could be blurry, but the whole thing?

Lighting: everything seems a darker, and flash ruins things even more. tried different exposures, brightness... only thing to do, is use the Nightvision mode on the camera, from my 'ible : and that makes everything green, so...
please help.

shoemaker 14 years ago

I didn't have any trouble at all.  Maybe some cameras are just not well suited to this. 

Also, you might try sawing off a bit of the length of the peephole tupe.

sjoobbani 13 years ago

Yea, you could do that, or you could just manually adjust the focus.
depends on how much you use it..

archmadtramp 13 years ago

I occasionally have troubles with focus, but it's usually because my hand wasn't perfectly still. I'm not sure of this, but with the fisheye lens, the camera's focus seems more temperamental...

Pretty Idiot Productions 13 years ago

Fantastic project that resulted in some fantastic pics.

Recycled an old plastic 35mm film canister instead of using the PVC pipe (cut out the entire bottom of the canister and mounted the peephole in the grey lid). Got the 200 degree field of view peep hole and wrapped it in the craft foam... fits like a glove on my Casio Exilim!

Thanks!

rada194 14 years ago

How Would i make it for this camera

J@50n 14 years ago

i would guess that it might work. but probably not. you may need lots of duct tape.

goeon 14 years ago

 works great ! thanks for the ible 

(sorta took the picture in a rush hence the blurryness

ry25920 16 years ago

nice idea. I gotta try this. It would be great for security.

shoemaker 16 years ago

Yeah, I guess there are a lot of really small video cameras these days. This thing would probably work with a lot of those cameras too.

sjoobbani 14 years ago

the corner security camera's and also, Dashcams
sometimes just for fun, or for "spying" on teen drivers...

sjoobbani 14 years ago

This is an excellent one, I've done it on a similar camera ( Flip Ultra HD )

shoemaker 15 years ago

I think it would work. The only problem is how to attach it. I think you could figure out some fitting that could hold it in place.

Quelso 14 years ago

This is awesome. I don't have to spend several dollars on this. This is very cheap and useful! This is my cat at the fish eye, and me in the fish eye! Jeje Thanks

sjoobbani 14 years ago

haha cat looking at a fisheye.. get it?

kitfoxtrot 14 years ago

thanks for the info! always wanted to experiment with one but didn't have the $- this is great :D
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