Building A SuperMacro Lens

June 19, 2010 by Mike Szczys 51 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW0cFk9d-P0]

[Lozzless] has a steady hand and plenty of confidence in his hacking skills. The video above is worth watching for the full eight minutes. In it you’ll see him convert a lens into what he calls a SuperMacro lens with a working aperture. The process involves fashioning a connector ring from a lens cap, modifying an Electro-focus lens mount, and assembling the parts to do his bidding. We don’t have the photography background to fully understand what he’s doing here, but we can appreciate the process, and the results are shown at the end of the clip.

[Thanks TommyC]

Simple Shutter Speed Tester

June 16, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 23 Comments

[Pablo] likes to buy and repair broken cameras. When he was in need of a way to test the shutter speed, his brother came up with a great idea. Harvest the photo transistor from an old ball mouse. It turned out to be just as easy as it sounds. He plugs the circuit into some sound editing software to get the signal. We think this is pretty slick.

[via Makezine]

Head Mounted Camera Tracks With Your Eyes

May 25, 2010 by Mike Szczys 44 Comments

The EyeSeeCam is a rig that attaches to your noggin and points a camera wherever your gaze falls. There’s actually four cameras involved here, one to track each eye via a reflecting piece of acrylic, one as your third eye, and finally the tracking camera above that. There are some legitimate medical uses for this type of technology, but we enjoyed seeing some of the videos that [Johannes Vockeroth] put together showing everyday activities. We’ve embedded several clips after the break including an example of reading a book while wearing the apparatus. The third eye camera provides the wide shot with close-ups of the wearer’s visual focus.

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Point And Shoot In A Classic Camera Body

May 12, 2010 by Mike Szczys 39 Comments

If you think there’s a gun inside that camera you’ve been fooled. We just like the juxtaposition of the 1940’s era camera with the iconic sidearms. What you see is a point-and-shoot cameras inside of the classic Leica II body (this is actually a Zorki 1 knockoff). It is much like the Canon AE-1 hack but this time there’s plenty of build details.

Digital camera makers try to get the smallest form factor possible and consequently the inside of those things is a nightmare of tiny parts and intricate connections.The Sony DSC-WX1 is no exception, and even the battery is disassembled to fit inside. See the final product and its features in the video after the break.

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DSLR Shoulder Holster With Follow Focus

May 6, 2010 by Mike Szczys 26 Comments

[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/11435910]

[Erik] and [Jonathan Bergqvist] built this shoulder mount for a Canon 7D camera. It’s made from wood and it hooks over the top of the photographer’s shoulder with a handle for each hand. The left handle also controls the focus, using a similar method to the hardware store follow focus we looked at in January. Like it or not, you’ll love watching a master woodworker build this starting with un-milled logs. It’s all about having and knowing how to use the right tools.

[Thanks Juan]

Building Removable Epoxy Mounting Brackets

May 6, 2010 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

[Jykazu] wanted to use an external lens with his Kodak Zi8 but he didn’t want to alter the camera or glue something onto it. His solution was to build a bracket out of epoxy dough. He first covers the camera in scotch tape to protect the finish, then he kneads the dough to mix the two parts together, using it to form the bracket that you can see above. After curing, the bracket barely sticks to the smooth tape and can be gently removed. A lens cap with a hole drilled in it is glued to this bracket and works like a charm for connecting the lens. Check out his manufacturing method in the videos after the break.

This is a great method for many applications. Last year we saw a product called Sugru which seems to be made for this type of thing but [Jykazu’s] epoxy method is just as impressive.

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Classic Canon AE-1 Gets A Digital Upgrade

May 5, 2010 by Mike Szczys 33 Comments

Shots of this Canon AE-1 camera-gone-digital have a lot of people scratching their heads. Originally there were a lot of “that’s been photoshopped” cries but the video after the break shows that it physically exists. This particular model of camera hasn’t been manufactured since 1984 so there’s little chance that the company’s bringing it back in a digital format. What we have here is a classic camera body with a modern point-and-shoot fit inside. This seems to be a PowerShot SD 870 IS and we’d guess the original lens has been replaced with a plate of glass so as not to affect the PowerShot’s focus, and the “AE-1 Program Digital” screen is probably just an image on the memory card.

We admire the clean mod work necessary to produce this hack.

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