Wide angle DIY lens “The plumbers crack”
So after creating the worlds thinnest pancake lens I thought I would try my hand at making a wide-angle lens. The first thing I should mention is that the image quality is on par with the cost and I think I spent about $5 total making this lens. This is possible because a certain percentage of the cameras that I acquire are dysfunctional so they end up being disassembled for their bits. It’s those bits that I use to make other things such as this lens. I did need to buy a $2.69 piece of ABC plumbing in order to make the body of the lens.
While I don’t know exactly where these lens elements came from, they are essentially the rear elements from two point and shoot cameras, one of them turned around to become the front group. Realistically your not going to be able to deal with most of the distortion when you do something like this so why fight it. This is the look of this lens take it or leave it. It turns out to be about a 15mm lens with horific yet wonderful barrel distortion. I haven’t determined the angle of view yet or the aperture which is always wide open in this version. Everything is rendered in a semi focused state no matter how near or far. Maybe there will be a Mark II version that performs a little better or maybe not as this is my digital Holga.
