Macro Lens from a Pringles Can 241
isharq writes "In a cool little feat of extremely low-tech hardware hacking, Photocritic has created a macro lens out of a Pringles can. According to the article: "with less than £1 worth of equipment, a little bit of sweat and tears, you can build yourself a surprisingly good macro lens". The results are astonishing."
Lens, my foot! (Score:4, Informative)
Not a lens but (Score:5, Informative)
lens to focus closer.
Mirrordot to the rescue (Score:2, Informative)
Why don't the
Mirror (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Lens, my foot! (Score:5, Informative)
From what I know, that's typically how macro lenses are done.
My father had all manner of steel-tubes and a billows arrangement for his macro setup. Ultimately, it was his same 50mm objective lens which was on the front of the camera.
Coral Cache (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Lens, my foot! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Macro lens? (Score:5, Informative)
So if you plan on shooting yet another flower and calling it 'art', you need a macro lens.
Note that many recent digitals offer moderate macro functions and do not require a macro lens.
Yagi antenna using a Pringles can... (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020207
Re:Lens, my foot! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Macro lens? (Score:4, Informative)
mirror (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hmmmm ..... (Score:2, Informative)
The guy has a D20, if he is rich enough to pay for that camera, he should ne able to afford a proper and good macro lens. Extension tubes are a pain when you are holding the camera and trying to focus but they are cheap alternatives for the real thing. I think the correct terminology is bellows or something like that. I have the stuff lying around but never bothered the learn the correct terminology.
Re:Lens, my foot! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Macro lens? (Score:5, Informative)
Focusing distance is not sufficient to qualify a lens as a macro. There are close focusing lenses that are not macro, and there are macro lenses with long focal lengths that don't focus particularly close.
A true "macro" lens is defined as a lens that allows for at least 1:1 reproduction of the subject image on the recording media. For the sake of simplicity, we'll talk film. If you photograph an object that is 1/2" across, and the resulting recorded image on the film is also 1/2" in size, you're shooting macro. A "macro lens" is one that is capable of rendering at least this 1:1 reproduction.
Unfortunately, many camera/lens manufacturer have abused the term to mean "focuses at a (slightly) closer distance than a normal lens at an identical focal length, so that when printed to standard 4x6 the image is life-size." This, of course, is regardless of the reproduction ratio of the lens. A rather silly definition, really, since any reasonable frame at any magnification can be cropped and enlarged to "life size" up to a point before quality degrades enough to become unworkable.
Extension ring, not a macro lens (Score:5, Informative)
What he built is called extension ring, it fits between the camera and the lens and allows extremely close focusing of any lens. Extension rings go for $20-$40, sometimes you can find them used for less, or you can by a set of 3 for around $100. Factory-made rings usually preserve automatic functions of the lens, at least aperture control, sometimes even autofocus. They are usually much shorter than the pringles can, anywhere from 9mm to 45mm (and you can stack them).
So this little contraption does save you some bucks, just not as much as you might have hoped if you read the title and priced a macro lens.
Another cheap way to do macro photography (Score:3, Informative)
No need for such fancy projects (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Lens, my foot! (Score:3, Informative)
The reason you'd want greater depth of field with a macro setup is that macro photographs have incredibly short depth of field. With a good set of bellows (mine are probably the length of a pringles can), your depth of field can easily be only 1mm. This makes photographing things that are 2-3mm big a challenge because you have to have the object perpendicular to the lens to be in focus -- that's a pretty boring straight-ahead shot. Extra depth of field lets you look at whatever it is off-axis, which is usually much more interesting.
Extension tube vs teleconverter (i.e. "extender") (Score:1, Informative)
Since the f-stop is related to the focal length and aperture, using an extension tube on a 50mm lens at f/16 will give you a stack that is still f/16. Using a 2x teleconverter, on the other hand, will double the focal length, giving you a stack that is two stops slower, i.e. f/32.
And for those of you who don't know what a "stop" is, stopping down (darker) one stop halves the amount of light that makes it through the lens per unit time. This is related to the aperture (opening) of the lens and to the square of the focal length, so multiplying the focal length by the square root of two (approximated as "1.4") will reduce exposure by one full stop. (Teleconverters commonly come in 1.4x and 2x, which reduce your f-stop by 1 and 2 stops, respectively.)
A foot is way long for midlevel modern digitals (Score:4, Informative)
A foot away is just tremendous distance for a modern mid-priced digital camera. I have a Minolta-Konica Dimage Z5 whose "super macro" mode, while somewhat depth-of-field challenged, can take pictures within a centimeter of the lens. That's on a camera with an image-stabilized 12x optical zoom, too, so it's not like it's the intended strong point of the model. IIRC there's a slightly more recent Canon, also with a longer-than-normal optical zoom, that can take snaps of stuff that's essentially touching the face of the lens.
That's on your $500-USD tier of cameras. Granted, the DOF is not perfect, and I'm sure it's less than a flat field, but the newest midlevel consumer digicams are lots better than a reflective Pringles can...
Re:Lens, my foot! (Score:1, Informative)
If you could stop a 50mm lens down to F16, and then you put in a 50mm spacer, then the highest effective aperture is now F32.
here is a quick link to learn the difference.
http://www.nikonians.org/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.
If you'd ever used extension tube with non-TTL metering you'd know the difference, when your image was way over exposed.
Re:Hmmmm ..... (Score:3, Informative)
But you're right, the part he's replacing isn't a terribly expensive one. And frankly I don't have a bunch of extra body caps sitting around either. (For some reason I'm always short them, probably because you only get one with each camera body, and they like to grow legs and wander off.)
Some of the macro bellows can get quite pricey -- I just did a quick google and some of them are $500+ (for Leicas I think), however there are also ones on ebay for less than $60, so I don't doubt that a person could find one cheap if they looked for more than five minutes. The actual Canon extension tube that this pringles can is simulating retails for about $170, and I'm sure there are generic parts for a lot less.
In short I think this review might be interesting for someone who wants to try macro photography, but unless you're dirt poor and inherited the camera or received it as a gift or something, it's not terribly expensive to get a real extension tube, and I think anyone would be a lot happier.
Plus with a real tube, there's not the same risk of having the lens fall off the front of it and go crashing to the ground. And no pringles grease on your lens, either -- frankly this is what would keep me from ever putting my lens inside a Pringles tin. Can you say oily?
IMDb (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The first time I ever felt deceived by /. (Score:3, Informative)
False. When they say "build a Pringles can network antenna", they are literally building an antenna. This guy isn't building a macro lens, he's building an extension ring to adapt a regular existing lens for macro focusing.
Another way to do it (Score:2, Informative)