lens · MaisonBisson

iPhone Camera Details

I have to look this stuff up every time I play with Hugin, the open source panorama stitcher. Thankfully I can find it at Falk Lumo.com: Pixel pitch: 1.75 µm Sensor size: 4.54 x 3.39 mm^2, 5.67 mm diagonal Aspect ratio: 4.02:3 Focal length and aperture: 3.85 mm f/2.8 lens 35mm equivalent crop factor: 7.64 Equivalent […] » about 200 words

50mm f/0.95

The Canon 50mm f0.95 is the stuff of legend. Sure it wasn’t particularly sharp, and depth of field was so short that you’re unlikely to get an entire face in focus, but the notion of a lens that bright is more than a little attractive (even if you’re unlikely to have enough light to focus […] » about 200 words

DIY Fisheye Lens For Aiptek GO-HD Camera

The Aiptek GO-HD isn’t such a bad camera for the money. It does 720p video and 8 megapixel photos, but the lens doesn’t go very wide. But a post in the Flickr blog pointed to a solution: use a door peephole as a fisheye lens. It works, but holding the peephole in front of the […] » about 300 words

Lensbaby Baby

I have an old Lensbaby 2.0 (looks like this) that does a great job of making casual snapshots look like real portraits. But I also find it really difficult to get focus on my subject. Blame my bad eyes, my insistence on using it wide open with it’s shallowest depth of field, and simply sloppiness, […] » about 200 words

Lens Lust

Digital Photography Review’s look of Sigma’s 50mm f/1.4 has me drooling. I have an el cheapo 50mm f/1.8 and am looking to upgrade. At $1500, Canon’s 50mm f/1.2 is just way too expensive, but their 50mm f/1.4 just didn’t seem to be enough of a upgrade to be worth the price. Sigma’s new lens, seems […] » about 300 words

Peephole DIY Fisheye Lens

Flickr blog I discovered the Peephole fish eye group. The idea is simple: us a $5 door peephole to give your camera a fisheye lens. Here are the instructions:

Hold peephole against rim of camera lens.
Set camera to “macro”. (the image is actually displayed on the inside face of the convex lens of the peephole. The camera must focus on the foreground image rather than the background image.)
Zoom in to the point that the viewable “circle” is framed almost evenly.
For best results, brighter lighting will avoid unwanted noise (grain)
Enjoy and have fun.

You can buy a pricier model with the Lomo label on it (and if you go looking, you’ll find a “peephole reverser” which is probably useless for your photography…probably). Henry Gordon Dietz offers a lot more info.

Above is my first experiment with a peephole fisheye and my cheap video camera.

Menu