10$ macro lens

[tpe]

What can you get for 10$ these days

O.K it gives shots that are a bit washed out and the edges are very unsharp but this was taken with a 5$ 4x microscope lens (the postage cost more than the lens) and an adaptor made out of an old CD-ROM attached to a K&M 5D, stacked from 66 images. It is going to be interesting to see what a better lens will do. I have a 10x as well but nothing small enough and the working distance is about 8mm so not sure what it will do.

tim

 

[Deadeye008]

That is awesome! I am assuming its a fly's head correct? Very cool!

 

[abraxas]

whoa- That's intense. No strange effect in the eyes. Is that the stacking that got rid of that? Gorgeous yet hideous- a face that only the mother of whatever-that-kind-of-thing is could love. I like the washed look too.

 

[TCimages]

Thats an amazing shot Tim. Can you share a pic of device you used?

 

[tpe]

Deadeye, yes house fly, was buzzing around the kitchen, lucky it got caught as it started laying eggs as the picture was taken, eughhh.

Thanks abraxas, i am not sure that washed look is going to go away, i built a little lens hood and it helped a bit, but,hmnn . Yes i know exactly waht you mean with that eye thing, especially with dragonfiles? I dont know if it is the stacking that gets rid of it, i didnt see it in any of the source pictures, but its a great idea to try a dragonfly or something where it is really apparent.

Hi TC, sure, it has gone through an upgrade since this picture, it now has a set of bellows instead of two concentric cardboard tubes to position the lens.

The pic is a bit confusing, the white thing on the end is a pingpong ball diffuser, inside you can see the little lens hood, and both of them are taped to the microscope objective, which is screwed into the center of a CD-ROM painted black and that is placed in a m42 adaptor screwed into the bellows.

The whole thing is mounted on a mill to allow small focus changes for stacking (but a tripod and refocusing works almost as well) as in the shot below, and that is in the bedroom . My poor wife... the software was combinez

tim

 

[Deadeye008]

I think we've found the new mad scientist of photography... Seriously though, that is some awesome work. I wouldn't know where to start to even rig up something like that. Do you have anymore pics. I would love to see them.

 

[TCimages]

Thanks for sharing. That's some setup you have there. I've seen some really interesting pictures of Macro setups, but yours is certainly the most creative. Good work! I'm looking forward to more shots with your rig.

How many shots did you stack for this?

Are you a Machinst? Being able to make 1/1000 of an inch stacks must be useful

 

[AbelR74]

Great shot! Awesome ingenuity!
Very nice work!

 

[Peniole]

Wow you went to great lengths, you might want to look for used microscopes though (that's basically what you built). They can be had for cheap and adapt the camera to them, makes for much cleaner images. I do a lot of microscope imaging for my research. People generally just adapt the camera to the objective, or you can go the C-clamp route (basically a prism or mirror reflecting into the camera lens). A dissecting microscope gives really nice images, but it certainly won't be for $5.

Nice shot!