lens

102 Articles

Mesh “Lens” Lets Your Camera Make Weird Pixel Art

December 24, 2025 by 14 Comments

We seldom talk about 3D printing lenses because most techniques can’t possibly produce transparent parts of optical quality. However, you can 3D print something like a lens, as [Luke Edwin] demonstrates, and get all kinds of crazy pictures out of it. 

[Luke’s] lens isn’t really a lens, per se. There’s no transparent optical medium being used to bend light, here. Instead, he’s printed a very fine grid in a cylindrical form factor, stuck it on a lens mount, and put that on the front of a camera.

The result is effectively a set of parallel tubes that guide light on to the camera’s image sensor. With the lack of any sort of focus mechanism, you can’t use this “lens” to photograph anything more than a few centimeters away. Get something up close, though, and you can take very simple, very grainy images that are reminiscent of classic pixel art. [Luke] demonstrates this in some fun ways, using it to take photographs of money, a plant, and his own eye. The images look almost like art assets straight out of a 16-bit game. He’s got the STL file up for sale if you want to print your own at home.

We’d love to see this concept explored further, maybe with some supporting optics for more versatile use. In the meantime, you might explore other ways of using 3D printers for photographic gain.

Continue reading “Mesh “Lens” Lets Your Camera Make Weird Pixel Art” →

Disposable Camera Viewfinder Becomes 3D Printed Lens

December 24, 2025 by 10 Comments

Disposable cameras are a fun way to get into classical photography. However, they can also be a valuable source of interesting parts that can be put to other uses. For example, as [Billt] demonstrates, their viewfinders can be repurposed into a rather interesting lens for more serious cameras.

[Billt] was lucky enough to score a grabbag of used disposable cameras from a local film lab, and tore them down for parts. He was particularly interested in the viewfinders, since Kodak equipped its disposable cameras with actual plastic lenses for this very purpose.

[Billt] wanted to see what these lenses would do when thrown on the front of a proper digital camera, and set about designing a mount for that purpose. The 3D printed part was designed to mount one of the viewfinder lens assemblies on the front of any Sony E-mount camera. In a rather nifty trick, [Billt] realized the lens assembly could be installed in the adapter by pausing mid-way through the 3D print to drop it in. The only unfortunate thing? The lenses didn’t really work, and all the camera could see was a haze of unfocused light.

With the aid of some cardboard experiments, [Billt] decided to make some changes. The front element of the viewfinder was dumped, with the rear element being used solo instead. This was fitted to the adapter on a simple slide mechanism so that focus could be reliably adjusted. With these changes, the lens came good, and provided some really interesting shots. It’s quite a cropped lens and it can achieve a very close focus distance, as little as 1 inch in testing. It’s quite sharp in the center of the image, while softly blurring out towards the edges—something that sounds very familiar if you’ve used one of these disposable cameras in the wild.

Sometimes it’s fun to grab a random piece of junk to see if you can turn it into something good. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Disposable Camera Viewfinder Becomes 3D Printed Lens” →

All You Need To Know About Photographic Lenses

June 20, 2025 by 12 Comments

If you have ever played around with lenses, you’ll know that a convex lens can focus an image onto a target. It can be as simple as focusing the sun with a magnifying glass to burn a hole in a piece of paper, but to achieve the highest quality images in a camera there is a huge amount of optical engineering and physics at play to counteract the imperfections of those simple lenses.

Many of us in the hardware world aren’t optical specialists but our work frequently involves camera modules, so [Matt Williams]’ piece for PetaPixel laying out a primer on lens design should be essential reading well beyond its target audience of photographers.

In it we learn how a photographic lens is assembled from a series of individual lenses referred to as elements, combined together in groups to lend the required properties to the final assembly. We are introduced to the characteristics of different types of glass, and to the use of lens coatings to control reflections. Then we see examples of real lens systems, from some famous designs with their roots in the 19th century, to the lenses of today.

Sometimes a piece written for an entirely different audience can bring really useful insights into our field, and this is one of those times. We learned something, and we think you will too.

Header image: 4300streetcar, CC BY 4.0.

A Low F Number Lens, From Scratch

April 6, 2025 by 52 Comments

The F-number of a photographic lens is a measure of its light-gathering ability, and is expressed as its aperture diameter divided by its focal length. Lenses with low F-numbers are prized by photographers for their properties, but are usually expensive because making a good one can be something of a challenge. Nevertheless [Rulof] is giving it a go, making an 80mm F0.5 lens with a Sony E-mount. The video below the break has all the details, and also serves as a fascinating primer on lens design if you are interested.

Rather than taking individual lenses, he’s starting with the second-hand lens from an old projector. It’s got the required huge aperture, but it’s by no means a photographic lens. An interesting component is his choice of diaphragm for the variable aperture, it’s a drafting aid for drawing circles which closely resembles a photographic part. This is coupled with the triplet from an old SLR lens in a 3D-printed enclosure, and the result is a lens that works even if it may not be the best. We know from experiences playing with lens systems that adjusting the various components of a compound lens like this one can be very difficult; we can see it has the much sought-after bokeh or blurred background, but it lacks sharpness.

Perhaps because a camera is an expensive purchase, we don’t see as much of this kind of hacking as we’d like. That’s not to say that lenses don’t sometimes make their way here.

Continue reading “A Low F Number Lens, From Scratch” →

[miko_tarik] wearing diy AR goggles in futuristic setting

Pi Zero To AR: Building DIY Augmented Reality Glasses

November 4, 2024 by 36 Comments

If you’re into pushing tech boundaries from home, this one’s for you. Redditor [mi_kotalik] has crafted ‘Zero’, a custom pair of DIY augmented reality (AR) glasses using a Raspberry Pi Zero. Designed as an affordable, self-contained device for displaying simple AR functions, Zero allows him to experiment without breaking the bank. With features like video playback, Bluetooth audio, a teleprompter, and an image viewer, Zero is a testament to what can be done with determination and creativity on a budget. The original Reddit thread includes videos, a build log, and links to documentation on X, giving you an in-depth look into [mi_kotalik]’s journey. Take a sneak peek through the lens here.

[miko_tarik] wearing diy AR gogglesCreating Zero wasn’t simple. From designing the frame in Tinkercad to experimenting with transparent PETG to print lenses (ultimately switching to resin-cast lenses), [mi_kotalik] faced plenty of challenges. By customizing SPI displays and optimizing them to 60 FPS, he achieved an impressive level of real-time responsiveness, allowing him to explore AR interactions like never before. While the Raspberry Pi Zero’s power is limited, [mi_kotalik] is already planning a V2 with a Compute Module 4 to enable 3D rendering, GPS, and spatial tracking.

Zero is an inspiring example for tinkerers hoping to make AR tech more accessible, especially after the fresh news of both Meta and Apple cancelling their attempts to venture in the world of AR. If you are into AR and eager to learn from an original project like this one, check out the full Reddit thread and explore Hackaday’s past coverage on augmented reality experiments.

Continue reading “Pi Zero To AR: Building DIY Augmented Reality Glasses” →

Creating Customized Diffraction Lenses For Lasers

August 23, 2024 by 3 Comments

[The Thought Emporium] has been fascinated by holograms for a long time, and in all sorts of different ways. His ultimate goal right now is to work up to creating holograms using chocolate, but along the way he’s found another interesting way to manipulate light. Using specialized diffraction gratings, a laser, and a few lines of code, he explores a unique way of projecting hologram-like images on his path to the chocolate hologram.

There’s a lot of background that [The Thought Emporium] has to go through before explaining how this project actually works. Briefly, this is a type of “transmission hologram” that doesn’t use a physical object as a model. Instead, it uses diffraction gratings, which are materials which are shaped to light apart in specific ways. After some discussion he demonstrates creating diffraction gratings using film. Certain diffraction patterns, including blocking all of the light source, can actually be used as a lens as the light bends around the blockage into the center of the shadow where there can be focal points. From there, a special diffraction lens can be built.

The diffraction lens can be shaped into any pattern with a small amount of computer code to compute the diffraction pattern for a given image. Then it’s transferred to film and when a laser is pointed at it, the image appears on the projected surface. Diffraction gratings like these have a number of other uses as well; the video also shows a specific pattern being used to focus a telescope for astrophotography, and a few others in the past have used them to create the illusive holographic chocolate that [The Thought Emporium] is working towards.

Continue reading “Creating Customized Diffraction Lenses For Lasers” →

Broken Lens Provides Deep Dive Into Camera Repair

May 13, 2024 by 18 Comments

While most of us are probably willing to pick up the tools and void the warranty on just about anything, often just to see what’s inside, many of us draw the line at camera gear. The tiny screws, the complex mechanisms, and the easily destroyed optical elements are all enough to scare off the average hacker. Not so for [Anthony Kouttron], who tore into a broken eBay Sigma lens and got it working again.

Now, to be fair, modern lenses tend to have a lot more in them that’s amenable to repair than back in the old days. And it seemed from the get-go that [Anthony]’s repair was going to be more electronic than optical or mechanical. The 45-mm lens was in fantastic shape physically, but wouldn’t respond to any controls when mounted to a camera body. Removing the lens bayonet mount exposed the main controller PCB, which is tightly packed with SMD components and connectors for the flex cables that burrow further into the lens to its many sensors and actuators. By probing traces with his multimeter, [Anthony] found a DC-DC converter on the main PCB with an unknown component nearby. This turned out to be an SMD fuse, and as luck would have it, it was open. Replacing the fuse got the lens working again, and while there’s always the nagging suspicion that whatever blew the fuse the first time could happen again, the repair seems to have worked.

Despite the simplicity of the fix, [Anthony] continued the teardown and shared a lot of tips and tricks for lens repairs, including where he would have looked next if the fuse had been good. One tip we loved was the use of double-sided tape to organize parts as they’re removed; this is particularly important with camera gear where screws or different lengths can make for a really bad day on reassembly.

Feeling the need to dive deeper into lens repair? This step-by-step repair should keep you satisfied.