This page will hold any hacks I have done or tried myself. Anything described or shown here is for informational purposes only. In other words, if you try to duplicate anything here yourself, any results, problems, or damage – real, imagined, made up, dreamt or any other type – is your (look in a mirror if in doubt of who I mean ) doing and responsibility. Simply put – you break it you fix it
Variable neutral density filter (ND)
There are commercial variable neutral density filters available, some costing several hundreds of dollars. There seems to be much opinion as to whether or not two stacked polarizing filters are a viable, cheap alternative. I have personally found that two linear polarizing (as opposed to circularly polarized) work fine with my Canon 300D. The main drift of all the arguments against stacking is that they don’t work due to the laws of physics and/or the different physical makeup of manufacturers auto focus methods. My suggestion would be to ask friends for the use of various type filters and give various combinations (linear and linear, circular and circular, linear on bottom circular on top, circular on bottom linear on top) and determine what works, if any of them. To determine if a combination works is rather simple. Mount them on your camera, turn the camera on, then slowly twist one or the other of the filters in a complete rotation while holding the other stationary. If the image darkens and lightens, you are halfway there. Now make sure the auto focus is turned on and take some sample pics at different distances to make sure the auto focus works. Remember that if you make the image too dark the auto focus may not work at all. Now, play nice and return the borrowed filters to your friends, thank them for the favor, and purchase your own.
Cheap add on wide angle and fish eye lenses/filters
Now, we have all probably seen the various strength wide angle and fish eye lenses (sometimes called filters) for sale all over the place. The usual cost is under $100. Before I go any further, let me explain what the numbers mean and what you can expect in return for your money. A fish eye .25x (multiply the 50mm times .25 for an answer or 12.5mm)lens will take your 50mm lens and make it four times as wide and give you the distorted fish eye effect. A .50x wide angle will give your 50mm a 25mm wide angle result.
Take a deep breath for a further explanation for the digital crowd. If you have a digital camera that is not a ‘full frame’, then you have a ratio to figure into this. Taking the 50mm with a .5x add on lens resulting in 25mm, you must now multiply that 25mm by your ratio. The ratio depends on your particular camera. My 300D canon’s ratio is 1.6. This means that the camera itself makes any lens mounted on it seem to be 1.6 times the number marked on the lens. So, using my camera with my 50mm lens and my .5x screw on lens I get a result of a 40mm lens on a full frame digital or 35mm film camera.
Another example would be my 300D and a 28mm lens. Adding a .5x lens gives me 14mm. Them multiplying that by 1.6 gives a final result of 22.4mm. Again, 300D with 15mm lens and using the .5x add on gives 7.5mm. Then multiplying by 1.6 gives 12mm.
Now to get to the bottom line. And be warned, this will be pure crap to the purists out there. Of course, the purists already have their full frame cameras and their super duper lenses, so they are forewarned that perhaps now would be a good time to actually go out and take some pictures.
1) The loss of light through these lenses is so insignificant that you can ignore it. Yes, something for free finally – you get twice the field of view and don’t suffer for it as far as light transmission to your film or sensor.
2) You will need a method of preventing flare since the Sun will seem to come out of nowhere in most shots. Either get a large wide angle sun shade for the add on lens or simply carry a magazine or a sheet of black paper with you. You will need to use a tripod due to the next item so the other hand becomes available to hold the shield.
3) a)Your sensor is now capturing a much larger chunk of real estate. The detail will be less due to this alone. b)If you handhold, the detail suffers further. c) The glass in the <$100 add on is not of the same quality as your $450 50mm f1.4 lens. It just isn’t.
4) I purchased a .5x wide angle on an auction place for $50. The lens has a list price of over $400 as it was made for one of those professional video cameras and the owner had changed cameras. Is there a difference in quality? Yes – a big difference. However if you take your $450 for the 50mm and put $400 with it for a professional add on, you wind up costing much more than just buying a nice wide angle lens.
The bottom, bottom line. Until you get the money scraped up for your ultra wide angle lens or the super fish eye lens, these add on lenses are FUN! Further, you may come to realize, as I have – that most of the time I crop and re-size those huge images anyways. I truthfully doubt that I will ever have need of a poster sized print of one of my wide angle or fish eye pictures. So, the loss of detail will never be a point. That wide angle shot of Manhattan taken out the car window as you approach the Lincoln tunnel will never show the pigeon on the windowsill of the ESB’s 60th floor.
DUPLICATING PINHOLES
Today (09/23/2008) I was digging around in the back of a drawer full of accumulated stuff for projects that never were done. There I found a matched set of Kodak C340 5MP Easyshare cameras I had purchased on an auction site two years ago. For what purpose, I cannot remember. They were obviously ‘as is’ specials. The little shutter window did not open on either one (Now I remember ! I was going to glue them open ! On one there was the remains of my attempt to do just that – a glob of glue right in the middle of the lens.) when it was turned on. Since I was thinking very recently about doing a digital stereo pinhole setup, I figured nothing ventured……
In the workshop I loaded batteries in the one with the glue glob and, turned it on, the lens assembly slid out, taking a pair of ratcheting pliers I wrentched the whole lens assembly right off the camera. Now, I had found that in the past that removing the lens assembly from other cameras sometimes caused the LCD screen to start flashing an error code. I turned the camera downwards, a spring and piece of plastic fell into the trashcan. Then I looked at the LCD and found it was only showing a very out of focus image. I pressed the shutter, reviewed the image and returned to the live view. Neat ! Now all I have to do is mount pinholes on the front of the cameras, put them on a homemade bar for the tripod and start shooting.
OK, now how do I make two duplicate pinholes? Easy ! I had done that already with my wooden stereo pinhole camera. Here is how I went about it. I had purchased a nest of feeler gauges from an auto parts store and used 1/2 of the .0015″ gauge for the prior project. Taking the last of the .0015″ gauge, I placeded it on three sheets of notebook paper (varying the numer of sheets of paper will allow you to make different sized holes) and then placed a piece of glass underneath. Taking one of my wife’s quilting pins (sharper and finer pointed than normal sewing pins)I pressed the pin through the metal and straight down to the glass. Then straight back up with out any sideways movement. Then another one about 1/2″ away. Taking a piece of 400 grit sandpaper I gently sanded the bottom of the holes smooth. There they were, all finished- two as identical holes as I could possibly make.
