Create Your Own Digital SLR Lenses
Posted 07/06/2007 at 11:06am
| by Zack Stern
BUILD A MACRO LENS
1. Have Some Chips, Grab a Drill
Your Pringles can should be empty, so start eating (or just put the chips in another container). Wash the empty can with soap and water to clean out all the grease. Let it dry thoroughly.
Use a Dremel Tool or standard drill to carve a hole in the can bottom, completing the cut with the tin snips. Make the hole about 1.5 inches in diameter so there’s still ample room to connect the body cap. You don’t have to hit the perfect center, but cut a good approximation.

It’s not your father’s shop class.
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2. Carve Out the Body Cap’s Center
Grab the body cap you purchased or scrounged up - and remember when you buy the cap that the connections vary slightly by camera brand. With your utility knife, gently carve the center out of the cap, stopping just before the locking mechanism that connects to the camera body. Roughly file or sand the inside of the cut - this will ensure that light scatters when hitting it. Clean out any stray bits of plastic.

The obligatory do-as-we-say-and-not-as-we-do recommendation: Cut away from you.
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